


sail the wildest stretch

by demauryss



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Banter, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Matchmaking, Slow Burn, also some prank wars, bit of a soulmate/tinder energy, eliott likes riling him up, lucas is a ball of pent up anger, there's also this cupid ready to throw hands at lucas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 48,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24218851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demauryss/pseuds/demauryss
Summary: Lucas is in a mess. His roommate is his ex-crush. He gets years worth of hairfall if he thinks a minute too long about his philosophy class. His penis-drawing talents are just out of the ordinary. And the cupid assigned to his case is a hair breadth short of committing his murder.But it’s okay. As long as he has to worry about Eliott Demaury getting to murder him first.or, cupid8776 has a lucas problem. lucas has an eliott problem. and they are not as unconnected as one might think they are. (enemies to lovers/matchmaking au.)
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 105
Kudos: 214





	1. april thunders may blunders

**Author's Note:**

> to anyone stumbling on here - i hope that you are safe and healthy. and that this little piece of my mind is enough to provide a distraction from these tiring times.
> 
> happy reading :))

> _Dear Lucallecoeur456,_
> 
> _I’m extremely disheartened to announce that your request filed under letter no 654lgb has been denied. According to my records, it is your tenth letter in the past five months which is getting rejected. Personally, I feel saddened as you’re the only person assigned to me who’s over eighteen and still hasn’t found a match. I’d be able to help you better if you consider the following points while writing to **cupidint.com** next time:_
> 
>   1. _While forming the letter, please consider typing in a computer before you write it down by hand. Or just consider inscribing **neatly**. You’re the reason our Server turns into a whimpering mess when it transcribes Coup de Foudre - assuming it’s what you write because frankly, your handwriting is garbage – as Coup de Foutre._
>   2. _Please refrain from using acronyms in your letter. Writing ‘brb’ every time you deviate from a thought does not make you look good. Especially when the abbreviated form has the same number of syllables as the original word. Even better, just totally refrain from straying from an original thought only to come back to it after five pages. Makes me feel like I’m walking through a maze as I’m reading your letter._
>   3. _While we’re on the topic of refraining, also stop drawing pictures of dogs when you’re asked for what you’re looking for in a partner. I know they are cute, but they can really not be an ideal partner for you._
>   4. _Consider saving your satirical remarks for the real life. Our Server isn’t smart enough to detect sarcasm and thinks you are being serious when you describe a trash can in the space specified for explaining your qualities._
> 

> 
> _If you would ponder over these suggestions then I believe I’ll be able to find you a match and it’ll make both mine and your life a lot easier._
> 
> _Yours truly,  
>  Cupid8776  
>  (They/Them)_

_*_

The day Yann gets his letter, it’s everywhere on the news. _local_ _loner boy_ , Lucas reads somewhere, _having qualities worse than the loner boy from gossip girl has a match._ There’s a post circulating on twitter which goes _friendly neighbourhood pretty man is officially off the market._ And another after reading which makes Lucas wants to wash his eyeballs with hydrochloric acid: _hot, tall, model-like being ready to dick down some pink canoes. it’s a trip you’ll never forget!!!_

It doesn’t help that Lucas suspects Basile’s fan-account for Timothee Chalamet to be behind half of these posts. Especially the last one. And it also doesn’t help that Yann’s latest letter is currently getting glued to the roof of their bunk bed, right where Lucas would sure be made to stare at it for the rest of his puny life in the lower bunk.

“You’re a fucking prick,” Lucas grits out as he smothers the liquid and ugly look to the back of Yann’s letter. His hands are slimy, and Yann’s fucking face is smiling at him from the small chair he’s perched on. “You don’t even have the fucking decency to do it yourself. Can’t believe I ever thought that I like you. Fucking unbelievable.”

Yann tuts, low and too sure of himself. His face is glowing. His eyes are crinkled. And he desperately needs a punch in one or both of these areas, “You’re being dramatic, you know that?” Yann gets up from the chair, a marker in his hands. If it were up to Lucas he would have used that same object to ruin Yann’s pretty pastel pink blanket. The asshole deserves that and even more. Muttering some more curses, Lucas goes back to the task at hand – pasting the paper in smooth cursive writing courtesy of Cupid5644 on the roof of his bunk bed. Yann looks towards him in the middle of drawing a tally across the four small lines marked on the cupboard above the handle. His face is glowing. He desperately needs a punch or kick to dull that fucking shine. “Besides you signed this up for yourself. So shut the fuck up.”

Lucas groans, resting his head against his pillow, the letter he just pasted staring down at him in all its glory. “This whole thing is ridiculous Yann,” Lucas starts, hands crossed on his chest, “I still believe it’s a world-government scam meant to lure people in for their assassination later. Like, can you believe even Sully from 231-9 has a match. There’s no way you can expect me to believe the System is genuine.”

Lucas looks over to Yann who’s now leaning against the cupboard, scrutinizing Lucas from afar, “Are you sure your reason for not trusting them has got to do with that and not with the fact that in the past three months, each one of your request has been rejected with no guarantee of you ever finding a match?”

“Fuck you, Yann,” Lucas scoffs, turning his back to Yann, his front to the wall. Let Yann believe whatever he wants. It doesn’t affect Lucas, nor does it have any ring of truth to it. Fucking douchebag. Let his match turn out to be some astrology-loving, Harry-Styles-listening, ravenclaw-ass-fanatic. She’ll leave Yann’s Scorpio ass in seconds.

He hears Yann’s footsteps before Lucas feels him crouching behind him, Yann’s finger poking the back of Lucas’s shoulders, “Hey now,” he sounds apologetic, Lucas will give him that, “Life isn’t all about that jazz; your match or partner or whatever. Don’t worry about it. At least you haven’t fallen for their scam yet.”

Lucas laughs as he turns to Yann. His face is glowing. Lucas has changed his mind. The former Yann might deserve a slap in the face with a brick but this Yann deserves all the Kit-Kats Lucas has stashed under his bed. Cupid8776 will have a field day if they found Lucas’s current train of thoughts. _Shocking_ , Lucas can imagine the magnitude of their gasp _, Lucallecoeur456 does have a heart after all. Who would have thought._

Lucas smiles at Yann as he extends his arm for him to take. “C’mon now. Basile will have both of our heads on a plate if we waste another second.” He gets up, stepping into his shoes as Yann walks out of their dorm. Something crunches under his foot – Lucas’s blunder; his newest message from Cupid8776. He had thought maybe Letter No 654lgb – lonely gay boy, for clarification – would finally tire them out. But apparently, that wasn’t the case.

Yann had laughed for ten minutes straight when he had read the letter. _“Your cupid is going to commit mass murder one of these days. And I think you’re going to be the first.”_ Lucas had shook his head at Yann’s analogy; he isn’t that horrible. He sighs as he bunches the paper into a ball and bullseye’s it into the trash can – the one he’d described in his letter. Cupid8776 has a big storm coming next.

*

So here’s the thing in quite simple terms.

The world’s currently under the secret matching agency Cupid International. Before that it used to be _SoulsBound,_ with the tagline _where we find your soulmate for you_. But then the name changed to Cupid Int. after getting involved in one too many scandals which Lucas remembers vividly; bold headlines on the front page of several newspapers: _Soulmate leaves Soulmate for another, better Soulmate #SoulsBoundFails._ And _Soulmate doesn’t buy eco-friendly products. Puts the planet at risk #FixItSouls._ And another, much dangerous and serious than the rest, which still gives Lucas nightmares to this day: _Gryffindor finds out Soulmate is a Slytherin. Says even pet stones can tell they’re not compatible #FuckSoulsBound._

These outrages demanded an instant name change, so _SoulsBound_ transformed to _Cupid International_ ; with a union of specially trained cupids from all over the world designated to find your _potential match_ anywhere on the planet after you turn eighteen. The changes were justified and a long time coming, Lucas would say, as for him the term _soulmate_ warranted a much deeper, not an ephemeral meaning; which couldn’t be forsaken for anything. But the _soulmate_ that they suggested were anything but that.

And that’s what brings Lucas to the _now_ : the thought that why people hassle so much for getting their letters to Cupid International as soon as they turn eighteen. Why instead of trying the conventional dating method - which has been getting much recognition as of late - they relied on some unknown person’s (or spirit? Who even were Cupids?) judging of whom they’d be compatible with. But then he guesses it has something to do with the fact that the conventional method is for people the Agency has dubbed hopeless – whose matches they still couldn’t find after years of research and rejection. Lucas is halfway turning into one of the people what with his letters of rejection piling up in the trash can.

But that’s not it. The Agency has more success than its scandals, which puts Lucas off. His grandparents met through the former SoulsBound. His neighbors that have been married for over forty years when he started university met through that. Yann’s parents met through that. Everyone he knows has some kind of emotional success story regarding SoulsBound/Cupid Int,.

And then his father had gone against the system and met his mother through the conventional dating method. Look where it had brought them now.

And here’s a thing in even simpler terms.

Lucas hates Cupid International with a passion which burns his sternum and makes his stomach coil in disgust. And it has nothing to do with the way he has told Yann how he thinks the whole System is a government scam. But it has everything to do with the way how _Cupid8776_ has denied all _forty_ of Lucas’s letters sent in the past nine months of him being eighteen. It makes his heart boil in his blood when he thinks about how he’s turning nineteen in three months and he still has no fucking chance of ever being matched with someone. Which sucks because out of all the remaining _6,999,999,999_ people in the world, there still isn’t someone with same interests as him.

Which is cool. Fine even. Lucas isn’t petty about it. And definitely an ass. No. He’s anything but an ass about it. Because you see. He keeps in contact with _Cupid8776_ when he’s not writing to them on the specified days of the week. He asks them about their health, their lives. If they have someone special in their life. If they took their dog to a walk. If they’re remembering to stay hydrated.

He makes sure to send in an email every week, even if all he gets in reply is a monotonous _Dear Lucallecoeur456, I’d appreciate if you would stop sending me non-work related messages. This email is reserved for work queries only. I’d also appreciate if you would use the time you took in composing this message on your request letter as I’m sure it would be more useful than this. Yours truly, Cupid8776 (They/Them)_ every single time.

So that’s what he does every time, much to the cupid’s dismay. He spends more time drafting his grocery list than the letter. Spends more effort in drawing stick figures of his enemy than correcting mistakes in the letter. Takes more interest in Cupid8776’s private affairs than his own. And still complain every fucking time why he hasn’t found a match yet.

But like he said, it’s fine. He’s fine.

*

The first damper on Lucas’s already damped mood comes a little after one. When a pretty fucking important experiment is turned in incomplete. The second comes in the shape of a person. And it’s much significant than the other.

Lucas has just crawled out of a brutal microbiology lab, his clothes tattered, voice bruised from screaming at his group members who don’t even know how to work around a fucking microscope. One would disrupt the lens and the other would somehow mess with the resolution. And then Lucas would curse his life and begin the whole fucking experiment just for the thrill of it, really.

So it goes without saying that after seven unholy tries on the experiment, it had been left incomplete as they ran out of time. Unfinished experiments aside, Lucas was fucking exhausted. He could feel the tired in every cell of his body as he walked from the class to the cafe in the campus where he’d agreed to meet the boys. Now not only was he about to drop down any second, he was also fourteen minutes late.

“You’re _so_ early, Lu,” Arthur drawls out, dull, “Couldn’t have come even earlier if tried.”

Lucas shakes his head and plops down loudly on the bar stool in between Arthur and Yann. He dumps all of his stuff on the ground, wincing as the muscles in his neck scream in protest. “I’m sorry,” Lucas sighs, reaching over Arthur to hit Basile on the back of his head who appears to be sleeping with his head resting on the curve formed by his arms which are folded on the counter. He jolts up, eyes wide, as he looks around the café with hand rubbing where Lucas hit him. “This fucker left me on my own in the lab. It was a nightmare, honestly.”

Arthur smiles his head as Basile pouts, “What was I to do, man? Daphne asked for my help, I couldn’t say no to her!”

Lucas shakes his head, looking over to Yann as he nudges his shoulder. Yann motions towards Basile, “But you don’t have a match, right? Where does Daphne come from in all of this?”

A proud smile takes over Basile’s features. Lucas finds it funny how the words _Daphne_ and _match_ in the same sentence makes the sadness and the sleep to literally dissipate from his face. “I know that, Yann. But to answer your second question, I sent an email to the cupid and he reassured me that I’d find a match in the next attempt so.” Basile shrugs like it’s no biggie, when to Lucas, in definitely is. “I’m hoping it is Daphne.”

“Here’s to fucking hoping,” Lucas’s attempt at muttering is intercepted by Yann, who looks at him weirdly. As if in a question. Lucas shrugs _, no biggie_. He also finds it funny how Basile’s cupid is replying to his emails reassuring him about the whole fucking ordeal, while Lucas’s cupid can’t be bothered for anything. Lucas gets this: Cupid8776 definitely has something against him.

They place their orders for their beverages: coffee for all of them except Lucas. He goes with cardamom tea. It’s when the café’s beginning to fill up with people getting freed from classes that Arthur speaks up. “But like, you haven’t met the person before right? What if they have the emotional range of a lentil?”

Out of the four of them, Arthur was the one who cared the least for the System, even less than Lucas did. He hasn’t sent a single request to Cupid International, saying he isn’t the one for dating or love. And Lucas respects all his choices. He looks up, affirmation on his tongue. But then his eyes fall over Arthur’s shoulder, in between the barricade of tired students blocking the door. And he thinks, he thinks – holy motherfu-

“Speaking of lentils,” He takes a sip of his tea, meeting the boys’ confused stares, “Here comes one, heads-up.”

And it’s just that – how Lucas spots him and a murky grey takes over his surroundings. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Something weird settles in his stomach as his _friends_ look over to the _ill_ lentil as a smile blooms across his ugly face. _Fucking traitors_.

“Eliott!” One of them shouts. It’s probably Basile. It’s definitely Basile with the way he’s waving his hands in the air. Lucas would have probably knocked them off of the face of the earth had it not been for Yann seizing him by placing both of his hands over Lucas’s shoulder. Lucas inhales deeply as Eliott walks over to their little settlement of barstools and idiots, a bounce in his step as he plays with the strap of the bag over his shoulder. Lucas looks anywhere but at him as he comes to stand next to Basile as he yells excitedly, “Good to see you here.”

“You too.”

Lucas just about murders Basile with nothing but his mind as Eliott’s shirt comes into his line of vision. And as Lucas looks up - goes against the well-being of his eyes - his eyes take a quick sweep of Eliott’s tall figure. Nothing out of the ordinary. He’s currently smiling warmly at Basile, then at Arthur. It’s when that his eyes fall on Lucas that the previous warmth in them is sucked out of them, like a vacuum, and they harden like stones as Eliott looks at him. And Lucas thinks he’s probably remembering the latest stick figure drawn on a piece of paper which Lucas had hit him with earlier as he was bent over an old, tattered book in the library.

“Have a seat, mate.” It’s Arthur. Double fucking traitor. Lucas should consider getting new friends. (But then, he thinks quite sadly, who would ever befriend him if not for these completely insufferable idiots?)

Lucas watches, stomach in knots and million things on his tongue, as Eliott’s face softens as he turns to Arthur. He smiles, “I have a class soon so I should get going.”

Basile murmurs something about it _being a bummer_. Arthur tells him that they’ll see him around. Lucas doesn’t know a bummer or what that is but he knows the look Eliott gives Lucas over his shoulder as he leaves – he knows the menace which is coiled in the white of his eyes, the absolute anger and disgust he’s reserved for Lucas comes pooling out in that instant, and Lucas almost washes away with it. Fucking pretentious asshole.

Lucas swallows his heart beating in his throat as Eliott disappears from his sight. Un-clenches his hands which have formed a fist without his knowledge. He turns on his stool, passes Yann a smile who’s been weirdly quiet during that encounter, watches as Basile’s contemplative face comes into his line of vision. And curses whoever put him in this situation: A Thinking Basile is not a Good Basile.

“Do you know apparently Eliott still hasn’t found a match either? Which is odd, since the guy’s a deity. I mean, just freaking look at him!”

Arthur side-eyes Lucas as he nods his head in agreement. Lucas should seriously consider getting new friends. The ones he currently have differ largely from on certain matters. And it fucking sucks that they know it too. “Yeah,” Arthur is saying, “he’s pretty. And nice too.”

‘ _Nice’_ my fucking ass. Lucas shakes his head, finishes his cold tea in a second, and picks up his bag which he dumped to the floor. It is common knowledge that Eliott Demaury is good-looking. He’s the person everyone in their uni flocks up to. He’s also pretty fucking amazing at everything he does. Which only irks Lucas more. He gets up, adding onto Basile and Arthur’s conversation with a silent Yann in tow.

“I’m gonna head to the bathroom,” he speaks to no one in particular, not really expecting the three people to stop their oh-so-important conversation about Eliott Demaury to pay him any attention. Shaking his head, he runs through a crowd, past a sulking worker, stressed students and mahogany colored back door to an alley o sheltered light and soft breeze.

Lucas breathes in deeply. His bag makes a sound as it plops to the ground. Closing his eyes, he focuses on calming his heart down which is beating so erratically Lucas has trouble keeping his mind on one place. If he could just wrap his hands around that fucker’s ne-

“Fancy seeing you here,” Oh fucking hell. Lucas fires off every curse he could think of in his heart. There is an off feeling in his stomach as he opens his eyes to Eliott’s hooded figure sitting off to his right, a cigarette placed between his lips. Lucas has to look down to place the full expression on his face, and it thrills him a little. (The act of looking down at him, for once. Not the clever smile which is placed on his face.

“Well, how’s your day doing?”

“Oh, it’s you.” Lucas shrugs his shoulders like it isn’t taking a great deal out of him to plaster the absolute fake smile on his face. “I was wondering why suddenly all the clouds turned grey.”

Even though he’s standing five to six feet away, Lucas doesn’t miss the brie fall of Eliott’s smile. But it’s coming into place faster than Lucas has the chance to feel good about the whole ordeal. He watches, against his will, as Eliott takes a long drag of his cigarette, the end of the stick burns brighter in glowing red embers before he blows white puffs of smoke in the air. He’s just so –

Lucas bites down on his lip to prevent the stupid thoughts from slipping out. Eliott watches him with (feigned) interest.

“Ahh there he is,” Eliott straightens his back. Even though he’s sitting on the steps to the side and Lucas is standing, it still – somehow – feels as if Eliott’s looking down on him. “I was wondering where the meanie in you has wandered off to.”

He didn’t just call Lucas a meanie. What the fuck.

Lucas heaves in a sigh. Wills his heart to stop hammering. “You wouldn’t know a thing or two about that, now. Would you?”

Lucas notices the little shake of his head, the light which falls over his face making it look like it’s dropped the sneer which has now become a part of his features whenever he’s around Lucas. And Lucas should revel in the thought of getting Eliott to show his real colours, but it grates on him regardless.

Eliott rubs his thighs over his jeans. Lucas traces the motion with narrowed eyes. And when he speaks, it’s to a completely different wave.

“You know, when someone asks about your day, you reply and then ask the question back. It’s called having a conversation, you know?”

Lucas bites the inside of his cheek, words already spilling out before he has a chance to assess them, “And what part of me actually looks like I would want to have any conversation with you?” Just. Who does he think he is? Pretending to be nice and all that. It doesn’t mean Lucas would forget when yesterday he doused Lucas’s workplace in some sticky as hell material which ruined not only his assignments which he spread on the table but left a permanent damper on his mood.

There’s a tilt to Eliott’s lips, his eyes bright and every bit gauging Lucas with the way they’re trained on him. The structure in his chest gives a painful squeeze.

Lucas doesn’t like it. At all.

“I should have known,” Eliott says with an air of nonchalance that has Lucas’s insides firing up in anger and – “You’re not one to have a conversation with.”

“Glad to have that sorted, then.” Lucas decides for the same tone Eliott chose earlier. He turns on his heels. And with Eliott’s eyes digging holes in his back, he returns through the same door he came out of earlier.

*

So here’s another thing in the simplest of terms. Lucas isn’t fond of many things in his life. He hates the System, his philosophy professor, Sully from 231-9. But what he hates even more than all of these things is the fucking lentil Eliott Dick Demaury.

*

There’s a dull buzzing seeping into his bones as Lucas walks towards consciousness. His limbs are still heavy with sleep, his eyes glued shut as he pats around his pillow for the vibrating device around him. He picks the phone up around a yawn, voice groggy as if he hadn’t used it in years.

Well, he hasn’t used it in _hours_. So. There’s that.

“Hello?” He croaks out, snuggling his face into the pillow under his head.

“Lucas Lallemant! Why are you still sleeping?”

The voice, filtered through the static, still compels Lucas to bolt upright in the bed, eyes now opened wide as he rubs away the sleep with his hand. “Mama!” He wills his voice to sound as if a trail of drool hadn’t had been drying at the side of his mouth. “You’re _still_ up!”

His mama chuckles a little, as Lucas is left to smile sheepishly. Her voice comes clear now, “I would have called you at crack of dawn and you would still have said the same thing. Besides, don’t you have to go to your shift in half an hour?”

Lucas frowns, and then gets out of the bed. He finds Yann gone, his bed properly made. That’s why Lucas was able to sleep that much, considering Yann has reserved a distinct hatred for Lucas’s sleep.

His limbs are heavy as he changes out of the moth-ridden (not exactly, but its appearance justifies the statement) shirt he slipped into before his nap. “How have you been, Mama?”

“Great,” his mother speaks on the other line. There’s a brightness to her voice which lessens as well as increases the cut of homesickness lodged inside the muscle of his heart. Lucas doesn’t let himself dwell on the sudden sadness which grips him. Instead he focuses on the smile he can hear in his mother’s flowery tone, “I’ve been spending a lot of time in the garden these days. You know the plants Willow got me? They flowered yesterday and they’re so beautiful Lucas!”

Lucas smiles as he picks up his bag lying by the door.

She hums on the other line. “And Dr. Noelle changed my medication. We’ve switched to lighter pills instead of those heavier ones that always made me drowsy and loopy. She said I’m doing better so no need for the heavy dosage.”

There’s something like relief travelling with the air he inhales right to his heart. The sun is bright as Lucas makes his way outside. “That’s good, Mama.”

His mother launches into details about stuff about her new medication like the schedule and the amount of pills she’s required to take each time. Lucas walks out of the campus, listening intently to his mother’s retelling of the shenanigans happening in the various clubs she has joined now that she doesn’t _feel so drained anymore._ Lucas tells her about his classes and life in return.

“Oh, yesterday in the cooking club, Nadine switched Hira’s container of salt with baking powder. It was quite fun to watch them two bickering afterwards. And there’s a betting pool going around the club about how much time they’re going to take before they get together.”

Lucas shakes his head, a smile pulling up on his face as he crosses the road, “Mama, you should help them sort out their differences instead of enjoying their fights!”

Lucas can hear her shaking her head. She continues, “We _should_ , but it won’t be fun anymore. Besides, I do like some slow burn if I say so myself.”

“You’re spending too much time on the internet,” Lucas muses, “Next thing I know you’ll tell me that you’re reading fanfictions.”

His statement is met with silence. Suspicious silence. He has a minute to be terrified at the prospect before he’s breaking out in laughter, “What the fuck, Mama!”

“ _Language_ , Lucas!” She chides, but there’s a smile in her voice which grips Lucas’s heart. Even though he’s kind of wary about the stuff she must find on the web, Lucas knows she can fend for herself.

“Anyways,” she steers the conversation to another direction. Lucas goes with it. “You’re coming on Saturday, right?”

Lucas nods, “Yeah Mama. I’ll try to make it on Friday if the boys haven’t got something planned already.”

The store comes into view, so Lucas says his goodbye into the phone. “I need to go, Mama,” Lucas swallows down the bile which rises in his throat. He misses her so damn much. “I love you.”

“Love you too, honey.” The lines drops, and Lucas is let to chase away the sudden sadness he feels. For a minute, he stands there outside the store, his heart beating with a pang of homesickness. But then he forces air into his lungs, clears his mind, and goes inside the store.

The store is blissfully silent when Lucas enters through the door. There’s a faint smell of lavender still left from the candle Mika must have burnt earlier. Lucas drops his bag behind the counter before he picks up the various records and CD’s piled on the counter and places them in their racks. He starts making his way to the store room for the stuff which was shipped earlier. Might as well get a head-start if he’s early.

The store’s owned by Mika’s aunt, and Lucas works part-time here. It’s a vintage record store; the business is okay. He had earned a full scholarship in the university, but needed a job for the basic necessities in his life. Mika offered a job – and the wage was enough to pay off his expenditures. It is okay, better even. Except – except for the –

Lucas ends up walking face first into a rock-hard chest. His nose gets squished against a set of solid pectoral muscles, the cartilage singing with pain. There are hands grabbing his forearms; stale cigarettes and citrusy bubblegum taking up a better half of his brain. If it hadn’t been for the way the systems operating his reflexes have trained him to be repelled away as soon as the scent hits his nostrils, Lucas is a hundred percent sure he would have delivered a leg straight into the dick in front of him.

“ _Hey_ ,” there’s an iciness which Lucas feels even though he’s overtaken by the pain in his nose. Lucas looks up, _up_ ; and here he is – the _dick_ in all its ugly glory. Lucas tries not to fall on the spot.

“Lucas Lallemant _is_ early? Am I dying or is it really happening?” Eliott cocks his head to one side, lips tilted up a fraction. Lucas smiles back sarcastically. What if he is late to almost everything in his life? That’s none of Eliott’s fucking business. Forcing the very delicious image of Eliott choking to death in his sleep to a dark corner of his brain, straightens his shoulders to stare at Eliott square in the eyes. He’s sad and he’s tired. So he doesn’t have any energy to deal with Eliott today, “Please crawl to whatever grimy hole you’ve crawled out of this time, Demaury.”

Footsteps follow his as he spots up the cardboard box holding the new records in the store room. Mika told him to stack them once he gets the time. He’s picking it up when the slime-covered asshat opens his mouth, “What are you doing?”

Lucas sighs, “Operating a spacecraft.” He moves towards the box, hearing Eliott’s footsteps falter behind him. “What does it look like?” Lucas picks up the box, but Eliott isn’t up to giving it a rest.

“Actually, leave it there. You’re on dusting duty today.”

The fuckin- “What?” Lucas turns on his feet. His stomach is doing weird somersaults. He crosses his arms across his chest and looks at Eliott, whose eyes are narrowed as if he’s examining Lucas. It’s like he’s plotting Lucas’s murder. And Lucas – he has a flashing thought. That would be the highlight of Eliott’s life, no?

He shakes himself into the present. And then gets the words out with great distaste. “Mika told me to stack them so.” He turns around once again, moving towards the box, only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Lucas shakes it off quickly.

Eliott stands off to one side, his face in its perpetual state of frown around Lucas. “Mika left me in charge,” he says, leaning his wait on the door as he looks down at Lucas. He won’t be intimated. No.

Eliott’s eyes flick to the box Lucas has picked up as he turns around, heart and head set in determination despite the initial bout of anxiety and something else which still sings inside him somewhere. Eliott almost has a foot of height in Lucas, and if that isn’t enough to make Lucas flee to the mountains, there are parallel lines drawn on the skin his forehead. His eyes are green, the one which reminds Lucas of moss gathered on stones settled to the ocean bed. Solid. Firm. Steady. Lucas wants to reach out and slap that look off of his face. Preferably with a chair. He raises an eyebrow; a challenge.

Something like light flashes on Eliott’s face, giving Lucas a look into an annoyed feature before turning neutral again. Like the plants viewed from the askew perception of water floating above the surface, Eliott’s eyes turn infinitesimally greener. “You’ll dust off _all_ the records in the A to M section. Or if you’d rather I tell Mika about the time you scratched one of his Stevie Wonders vinyl, I’m down with that too.”

There’s no wonder in the way the box previously in Lucas’s hands retains its original place. No. Definitely not him getting intimated by that giant goo of citrusy smelly being with his head too far up his head. Eliott’s face transforms into one of his ugly smirks; the one which is belittling and totally hateful towards Lucas. Lucas just about launches his self upon him.

“If we’ve figured that out,” Eliott straightens his body, his eyes have that weird sparkle that they always gain whenever they see Lucas miserable, which is just about every fuckin time Lucas comes in contact with Eliott. “I also would like if you could hurry up. We don’t have all day today.”

Lucas bunches his hands in fists to his sides as Eliott walks out, all pretentious and glad as he is to have the final word. He blesses Lucas with one final boastful look over his shoulder, the green now as bright as day.

It’s no biggie, Lucas thinks. He can easily refuse. There must be atleast a thousand records in the A to M section. Well, not a thousand but you get the gist. And Céline has been in Léon for the past week to attend her brother’s wedding. Which means the records wouldn’t have been dusted for years. Not only would Lucas have a stellar day cleaning them, but his terrible allergy would cause him immense pain. But the scratched vinyl and Mika’s wrath after knowing about it would cause him a direct ticket to his grave.

So with heavy steps and an equally heavy heart, Lucas stomps over to the racks holding the worn out records covered with dust. There’s something tingling in stomach. He swallows down the feeling, and pushes Eliott out of his mind. That fucking asshole. No wonder he hasn’t got a match.

He goes towards to the record player he persuaded Mika to get for the store. Eliott had brewed a shit storm when Mika had agreed. His ‘ _Music would be distracting’_ was countered by Lucas’s _‘What kind of a music store would it be if it had no music playing?’_ and in the end, Lucas had watched a brooding Eliott triumphantly as Mika brought in his uncle’s record player the next day. And so it beings him a great deal of joy as he places in a record in the player that Mika has given his permission to be played in the store.

The records in front of him glisten with the reason Lucas would be walking out of the store with his eyes on fire and respiratory track on a lock down. Elton John croons in the background as he takes out the sticky notes from his pocket (they come in handy when the situation is like this, okay?), tears off a note. Eliott doesn’t, thankfully, _surprisingly_ , bother him once as he gets to work.

*

It’s to a violet and pink merging together that Lucas looks up to when he makes his way out of the store. Even though his eyes are stinging, and his throat feels like the surface of a cemented wall; all rough and scratchy with cheeks stained with the water his eyes won’t stop producing, Lucas still looks up as a bird takes flight into the setting sun, a silhouette of the fucking time and energy Lucas lost removing years’ worth of dust off of records and cursing the asshole parading the halls with a stick in his ass.

Lucas doesn’t know why Eliott has made it the mission of his life to make Lucas’s life hell. And he also doesn’t know why Eliott’s like warm, soft sunshine when faced with anyone other than Lucas. Hell, if Céline had been the one asked for the task, Eliott would have stepped right up as the fucking gentleman he is to offer to do it himself. And it is funny how once he’d spot Lucas, his face would twist like he’s sucking on a sour lemon or something. Lucas doesn’t get that. He can’t.

With a sigh heaved out of his super congested nose, Lucas starts walking back to his dorm, his bag slung over his shoulder. He had been thankful for Eliott’s absence as he was walking out. It gave him a chance to stick the drawing which he made onto the first page of some deep shit book Lucas knows Eliott keeps in the drawer of the counter. Eliott was nowhere to be found, and Lucas was left with the proof to reinforce his theory. He firmly believes that besides being a fucking dick, Eliott Demaury is also a ghost which keeps appearing out of the blue and then disappears as if it hadn’t been there before. And Lucas is quite okay with that. The role suits Eliott in more ways than one – but it’s also sad Lucas’s won’t be able to get the pleasure of murdering Eliott if he’s already dead.

A rain droplet falls from the darkening sky over Lucas’s head. It lands cold in the center, making Lucas quicken his pace as he rounds the final corner near the dormitory. Yann would already be there, and Lucas can pester him all night to get him some chicken soup.

He makes it to his room just as the rain starts pelting on the ground. Lucas kicks off his shoes as he enters the room. Yann’s hunched over the study table, half asleep from what it appears to him. It’s when a particularly loud sneeze bursts through Lucas that Yann looks up.

“You look like a vampire,” Yann snickers as he looks at him. Lucas doesn’t need to look in the mirror to see what mighty image he’d be painting with red eyes and pink nose and tear-stains on his cheeks. He drops his bag, takes off his wet clothes and jumps into the bed in his boxers. Muffling his face into the pillow he lets out a groans, “I hate that asshole so much.”

“W _hom_ do you not hate?” There’s a smile in Yann’s voice. Lucas chooses to ignore it. He sighs, turning on his back and staring at the abomination he glued to the roof of his bed earlier.

“That’s not the point, Yann,” Lucas exhales, “He knows I have a dust allergy. But still he fucking blackmailed me into dusting the records. It’s like he was getting me back on something.”

“Well, you do keep making those drawing of him,” Yann stops just as Lucas sits up. He scoffs, “Whose side are you on Yann? I can’t believe he’s bewitched you too.”

Yann shakes his head. He looks like he’s regretting every of his decision which brought him here, to this second, with a Lucas with a quarter of his brain working. Fucking Eliott Demaury and his fucking charm. Lucas doesn’t get what’s so special about it.

“-and then I had to walk in the rain,” Lucas continues, sighing into his arm. There’s a light pitter patter which is reaching Lucas’s ears. Lucas would have been able to take in the sandy smell that must be wafting in the air if his nose hadn’t been so congested. It’s Eliott’s fault. All of it. “Fucking pretentious asshole,” Lucas mumbles.

Lucas turns his head. Yann has his contemplative face on, “Don’t take it the bad way Lu, but don’t you think you’re kind of hung up on him?”

Lucas sits up, shocked to his very core. With a gasp he splutters like a fish out of water, “I’m not!”

Lucas doesn’t know where Yann is getting these terrible thoughts. Lucas won’t fall a prey to that. Fuck. Yann doesn’t seem fazed. It’s like he’s done this every other day of his life. What, Lucas doesn’t know. “If you ask me, or Arthur, or Basile, it kind of seems that you are, Lucas. You bring him everywhere, you know? Even if the situation doesn’t call for it, you’ll somehow make it so it has something to do with Eliott. And I think that’s where your fault lies: You give him too much thought.”

And that is…..totally not wrong. Maybe partially, but – Lucas does bring him everywhere with him. And that’s totally on Lucas. It’s maybe the reason he’s so miserable half of the time. He gnaws at his bottom lip, then, as in afterthought, speaks, “Well, then, fuck the rain, I guess?”

Yann’s face lights up as a chuckle passes his lips, “You know what they say Lucas: April showers May flowers.”

Lucas looks at him from the corner of his eyes, “More like April thunders May blunders but whatever floats your boat, I guess.”

And like expected, Yann starts shaking his head, exhaling heavily. The sound makes Lucas grins and he looks up just as Yann clicks his tongue, “You’re a hassle, Lallemant.”

“What do you mean? I’m a delight to have around.”

Yann clocks his head to the side, eyes narrowed, “Listen, I know atleast one person who would greatly differ with your statement.”

Lucas sighs, plopping his head back on the pillow, “Yann, you and I both know that Eliott hates my guts, so.” He shrugs. It’s common knowledge now. And wasn’t Yann just lecturing him about giving Eliott to-

“I was talking about your cupid, actually,” Yann has a terrible looking thing crawling into the fibers of the cells constituting the skin Lucas so badly wants to punch right now. The corner of his lips hitch up a fraction before he gets up from his chair, slinging his leather jacket over his shoulder. “I’m gonna go out for a smoke,” Yann says, a smile crinkling his eyes, “You sit here and think about him, okay?”

He’s out the door in a second; the pillow Lucas throws at him landing on the ground after harshly colliding with the door.

Fucking asshole _s_.

*

> **_cupidcollns@cupidint.com_ **
> 
> _Dear applicants,_
> 
> _Requests for the new sessions have been opened. Kindly take out the prints of your forms from cupidint.com. Please make sure to send in your requests to your designated Cupid before Friday. Any and all requests received after the deadline will be rejected._
> 
> _Yours truly,  
>  Cupids_

Lucas stares at the bright flashing and too depressing email displayed on the computer screen. There’s a dull throbbing behind his left eyebrow, his eyes are burning, and Yann still hasn’t returned with the food Lucas messaged him to get for him a few minutes after his departure.

His eyes move from the screen severely damaging his brain to the ugly yellow form Lucas keeps stashed in case of emergencies. His pen rests on top of in a bit slanted. Lucas hates the very sight of this form; apart of tree wasted for nothing. He remembers the many papers like this he sent many times before, and still end with fucking disappointment. What or who is to say this time won’t be the same.

With a dejected sigh he picks up the pen and presses the clicker. Might as well sign up for another disappointment. It is as he starts reading _What would you pick to describe yourself as? Please pick one of the choices_ and is in the process to bang his head against the table cover over the answers that his phone pings with a notification. He unlocks the device, squinting at the light flooding his burning eyes. His stomach coils in on itself.

**_Eliott D_ ** **_💩_ **

_céline will be back on friday  
_

_so it’s your duty to dust the records till then  
_

_also, you draw terribly. thought i should let you know_  
  


Lucas stares at the words with a newfound hatred which now boils beneath his skin and rises up like a tide ready to consume all of him. But if that happens Lucas would so something extremely petty and stupid. Eliott won’t let him live, and besides, Lucas is above that. He turns his phone off, and with a bout of energy coming from somewhere inside him, underneath his sternum, he picks up the pen and, because he’s inspired, starts drawing penises everywhere there’s a blank for answers he’s supposed to write. The letter’s going to be rejected anyway; Lucas might as well go down with dignity.

This is it, Lucas thinks, when Cupid8776 finally gives up on him. Ha. Lucas would finally be free of their trap.

(And, because he’s inspired, he also takes a picture of the penis, lines them up with the various shots of the stick figures currently accumulating in his photo library, and sends them all to **Eliott D (Poop Emoji).** In response to his last message, Lucas provides: _i don’t think i’m terrible. i’m getting better at drawing your portrait, see_ and presses send.)

Lucas folds the letter into an envelope and is on his way to mail it. And when Eliott replies back with a chain of messages including some very gruesome _you are fucking annoying_ and extremely threatening _crawl back to the whole YOU have come out of, psychopath_ somewhere between that, Lucas doesn’t feel any remorse.

Like he said, he’s above that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please drop a comment or leave kudos if you'd like. if you want to talk to someone, my inbox is always open.
> 
> tumblr: [@demauryss](https://demauryss.tumblr.com)
> 
> see you next saturday!
> 
> jtm ❤️


	2. when life gives you lemons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in this edition, conversations are had, matches are made, makers are doubted and lucas almost flings himself (and cupid8776) to the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone for all the love on the previous chapter. i hope you like the rest of the story as well.  
> i hope this offers a distraction from these times, even if for a little bit <3  
> happy reading :))

Here’s an admission: Lucas was never an advocate for hate. In fact, Lucas _despised_ the word with a passion.

It’s what his mother had taught him: Be kind, always. He’d share his lunch with the kid who had pushed him in the playground just because Lucas would see he looked sad and alone during the break. He’d always be the bigger person, even if the situation called for a serious rebuttal. Lucas was never resentful towards the person who was rude or mean to him because _what was the fucking point_? He also never saw any flaw to this logic; the fault in thinking that being nice to someone every time they were mean to him would be the solution to everything.

But it changed soon when Eliott Demaury sauntered into his life. He quite literally opened up his eyes. And as it goes, Lucas had the rudest awakening.

*

Lucas still remembers the day through a set of smudged, snot-covered glasses. It was one of those days during which he was still getting the hang of working in a record store. And he was late. Like always.

There was a note taped to the front counter, Mika’s sloppy handwriting telling Lucas to sort the records in the back shelf. Lucas had taken a look around the dark and empty store, and deemed himself to be the only person present. He had stood on a stool he acquired from the backroom and started shelving the records. There was something – Don’t You Forget About Me, to be exact – playing softly on his phone which he left on the floor.

When Lucas thinks about it now, it doesn’t fail to leave him with surprise at how he still knows the exact words of the song playing at the moment but doesn’t know when and where the fuck was there another voice coming from.

“It doesn’t go there.” Simple words. Huge impact. Lucas was too caught up, apparently, that he hadn’t noticed he, in fact, wasn’t alone. The new voice took him by surprise as he swiveled on his feet, forgetting for a moment that he was standing on a fucking stool. That was the flap of the butterfly’s wing, it seems, since all Lucas remembers in the next moment was the stool shaking underneath him as it tipped on its legs, sending Lucas careering to the floor. It didn’t help as he landed on his leg, twisting his ankle in the wake. It also didn’t help that he was holding a vintage Stevie Wonder vinyl, which he ended up scratching on the way.

Lucas was confused, and embarrassed, but so much in pain that for a moment he forgot what has caused his literal downfall. His foot was burning, and his leg had weirdly cramped up. But as it came to him, he turned his neck, and sure enough, there was another – and quite unapologetic, Lucas feels the need to add – person staring down at Lucas.

“What the fucking hell?” Lucas somewhat spoke through his pain. The person in their tall glory didn’t budge. Lucas for a minute thought he was imagining a ghost. “Why did you have to sneak up on me?”

The person shrugged. There was a yellow bulb hanging over them, highlighting their features. But Lucas was solely fixated on their eyes, which were freshly green. Lucas hates them now. “I didn’t sneak up on you.”

“Yeah, right.” Lucas had scoffed, trying to will his leg to corporate with him. His cheeks were weirdly warming up. And he was still sitting on the floor, cradling his close to broken foot. Fucking hell.

“You were so immersed in sorting the records. Wrongly, might I add. It’s your fault to not pay attention to your surroundings.”

Lucas’s stomach flared up. “Are you fucking serious?” He remembers shouting, pointing a finger at the tall person. Their Adonis like self and green eyes and high cheekbones and fucking unkempt hair all the while angering Lucas more. “You just caused me to fall on the floor, broke my foot, and now you’re saying it’s my fault?!”

Who was this person and what was he doing in the shop was the last thing on Lucas’s mind. What was on the front was a huge red sign and anger bubbling in every part of him. The person took a step forward, eyes flitting to Lucas’s foot. He looked up once again, and what tumbled out of his mouth had caused Lucas to throttle the person with his bare hands, “Your foot isn’t broken. It looks fine to me.”

Only that Lucas was sitting on the floor with pain shooting up his leg with every breath he took. So the quite pretty image of choking the person was forced to the back of his head.

“You’ll be fine,” The person went on, halfway turning before looking at Lucas who pretty sure at his mouth hung open in disbelief. “Anyways, I’m Eliott. And I just started working here.”

And that was the first of many times Lucas literally and metaphorically fell for Eliott Demaury’s ruses.

*

It was three months ago. Lucas remembers the cold of the February and the stinging in his ankle which followed him all the way to his dorm. For someone as convinced as he was that his ankle was broken, it was sure a surprise when he made it back to his dorm without crying like a baby. (Turns out, it wasn’t actually broken. It just took the fall for him and was fine in the next few days.)

And for someone as sure as he was about nothing being worse than Eliott causing his fall and acting like a dick about it afterwards, the months that were about to follow were every bit of surprising to him. And even more so when everyone was singing his praise within two days. Cue in the guys – and their obsession with Eliott within a minute of meeting him – which had caused Lucas to wonder if the Eliott he’d met was just his hallucination.

But he was as real as the pain in his ankle and the huge bruise on his the side of his leg which had followed Lucas for three weeks. And it turns out, Eliott wasn’t a hallucination. Maybe the nice Eliott – the one every person other than Lucas was waxing poetry about – definitely was. And _still_ is.

And that was the most problematic thing for Lucas, you see. The Eliott he’d met – and would continue to meet – was this literal grey cloud looming over his head, bringing misery for Lucas whenever he’d as much as pass by his general direction. The time Lucas fell because of him and scratched Mika’s priceless vinyl aside, Eliott drove Lucas to bang his fucking head on the wall.

There was a time, after Lucas’s initial bout of contempt for the tall, absolutely disheartening person, that he started thinking about judging Eliott wrongly. (It was after he was accused of the ill-stares and blowing things out of proportion’ and ‘maybe be nice to him; he’s new’ whenever he recited his first meeting with Eliott, but we won’t be talking about that.) He went as far as considering a fresh start. And he did. He remembers how he was with Celine, and she was complaining about the workload, and Eliott walked in. Lucas was still wary of him, but he was surprised when Eliott greeted him, even offered to make the both of them coffee. Something lifted in Lucas’s chest. Maybe Eliott was as eager as him to start fresh.

Celine was gushing over Eliott when he handed both of them the cups, Lucas accepted it with a small thank you. And as he took the sip of literal gallons of salt dissolved in a cup of warm water – Eliott looked over to him with a sinister smile on his lips, a look so knowing and evil Lucas was compelled to wash it off with the water making the inside of his mouth literally ache.

“How’s the coffee, Lucas?” He asked so sweetly Lucas had to clench his fists in anger. Celine was looking at him, and he was already turning into the bad guy. Eliott _was_ making him look as the bad guy. So he had to take a hold of his self even though it was feeling like his cells were shrinking in on themselves as he took another sip of the terrible salt water – and Eliott’s eyes were shining with so much mirth once Lucas nodded and fucking smiled with ‘ _It’s good. Thank you.”_ Each word was like a dagger to his heart, and he hoped Eliott felt the same as he threw them at him with his eyes.

He was out of there in a second, dumping the horrible contents of the cup into the bathroom sink. His attempts to be nicer had backfired terribly, landing him in his own grave. He was mad and so, _so_ confused at what he’d done that warranted such actions from Eliott.

He’d left the bathroom a changed and determined man: He was going to give Eliott Demaury a taste of his own medicine.

And so had begun a war which Lucas would rather die than lose. He had retaliated Eliott’s attempts with those of his own. Hiding the pretentious ass books Eliott keeps reading under the loose floorboard? Brilliant. Insult his terrible taste in music when he insulted Lucas’s drawing from the model he drew? Alright. Be late on purpose just so he could watch Eliott Demaury lose his fucking mind? Absolutely. Blast Britney Spears on full volume when knowing how much he’s repulsed by her? Count him the fuck in. Start leaving little penises in the form of notes for him to find after he sabotaged his reputation in front of his favourite customer? Why the hell not.

Lucas couldn’t foresee it all being played in his favour. And Lucas still doesn’t see it cultivating any benefit or some positive effect in the long run. He really can’t. But still – it’s something which needs to be done. For Eliott sees him as some gullible, naïve little being which he can push around to his heart’s desire, keep constantly annoying the shit out of, and himself turn into this – this fucking innocent angel whenever Lucas as much as mention Eliott getting on his nerves to anyone.

Lucas hates that. He really does.

And it doesn’t help when he sees how _whipped_ everyone is for Eliott. He’s made sure of that. But as much as it pisses Lucas off, he knows he needs to have his head clear around him. Because the opposite would be what Eliott wants. And Lucas can’t have that.

So if that means for Lucas to draw dicks for the rest of his life; be ready to launch in fight mode at any instant; be in a constant state of misery wherever Eliott’s present and just – just be a typical ass around him – Lucas can confidently say he has no problem living up to that mark.

Because Eliott has left no effort in portraying him as an ass. He might as well be one he knows not to mess with.

*

> _cupidcollns@cupidint.com_
> 
> _Dear applicants,_
> 
> _Two days left to submit in your request letters. We really hope you guys had/are having fun (but not too much fun – our Server isn’t ready for that) with your letters. Please make sure to get them to us in time since we are loving the matches made thus far and can’t wait to get started on the rest of matchmaking._
> 
> _Yours truly,  
>  Cupids._

*

Lucas would like to confess two things: a) When Basile had called him a brainless idiot point two seconds after meeting him and Lucas had protested profusely before deeming him one of his own, one of them had been lying. b) It was Lucas.

Lucas is making sense of this only now. It’s not that he didn’t know he is an idiot – He’s come to terms with his stupidity long ago. It was through one of his many adventures through high school that his newest quality had become his brand. And the times after that had truly made the feature stick with him. So an idiot – he definitely was. A brainless idiot – well. He _was_ on the track of becoming one.

See, when Lucas had opted to major in microbiology in university, he didn’t know what he was thinking. Surely, to be sat inside a pristine, white-tiled lab operating on bacteria and whatever he could find and making vaccines and living a calm life was one of the many things happening inside the brain (or lack thereof) of his. But to be sat under a terribly creaking and a swinging fan over his head; a multitude of books on stuff ready to cause him a heart attack; and _this_ close to banging his head on the floor of the store or even better, flinging himself to the sun wasn’t what Lucas had planned on achieving.

So it was pretty safe to say that Lucas didn’t have a brain. Or at least, he didn’t have one which was capable of forming coherent thoughts and making viable decisions.

The assignment he is trying to work on was due on Monday. (Trying being the main word because so far he’s failed to make sense of a single word in front of him.) It’s supposed to make up twenty percent of his final grade, so the option of half-assing it has long since flied out of the metaphorical window in his head.

Mika was manning the counter Lucas was sat behind, books borrowed from the library all opened at various pages in front of him. He’d tried to dust the records as fast as he could before getting to his assignments. Eliott hadn’t been there, which was the only uplifting thing about the whole ordeal, because he knew Eliott would have added more stress onto his already overbearing shoulders. With his constant nitpicking and wishes to have things done a certain way, according to his standards, Lucas knows his head would have exploded and Eliott would have had a field day seeing Lucas so miserable.

But fortunately, there hasn’t been a sign of Eliott till now. It is kind of infuriating, you see, with Eliott constantly all up in Lucas’s face for his tendency to be late. And look at him now.

“Kitten,” Mika scoots down in front of him, “You’re going to give yourself permanent wrinkles with the way you look right now.”

Lucas sighs, rubbing his eyes which seem to be burning. The muscles in his neck strain painfully when he makes an effort to turn his neck to the side to look at Mika properly. His forehead is in lines. And Lucas feels it’s appropriate that Mika will get wrinkles before Lucas does. He tells Mika as such.

“Don’t worry about me, Lucas,” Mika smiles, his eyes crinkling at the sides. “I take care of my skin enough. You, on the other hand – I feel like it is right for me to assume that you hardly wash your face with the way it looks.”

And Lucas should find that offensive. He really should. But he’s exhausted. And stressed. And Mika really doesn’t look like someone he should pink an argument with right now. So he forces a heavy sigh out of his nose, straightens his shoulders a bit. His posture must hate him.

“I barely have time to breathe Mika,” his voice sounds tired to his own ears, “And you’re asking if I wash my face. That’s pretty stupid of you, if you ask me.”

“Hey!” Mika scoffs good-naturedly. Lucas chuckles when Mika continues. “I know it is bit of a stretch, but may I gently force you to go and wash your face right now? Frankly, you look like a mess. And besides, your pores will thank you later. Or thank _me_ , I guess.”

Lucas shakes his head, laughing under his breath at the way Mika’s face brightens when Lucas gets up and start making his way to the staff bathroom. It’s a lot quiet in the store with just him and Mika around – the idiot lentil Lucas is forced to call his fucking co-worker. His stomach does a weird churn when he remembers Yann’s words, and his brain’s (or lack thereof) fucking propensity of reminding him of the asshole making his life a living hell. It’s funny how much Lucas hates even the idea of him, but can’t even go about a second without any reminder about him.

Except for today, of course.

Lucas splashes some water on his face, washing it like Mika instructed using the expensive as fuck face-wash Mika keeps stacked in the small cabinet over the sink. Thankfully, there isn’t anyone criticizing his every move today. Lucas hums to himself as he walks out of the bathroom, head somewhere far in the clouds. But it’s also kind of sad that not every day is like this. But maybe, if he pulls his cards right, he can convince Mika to - _oh_.

Lucas stops walking as he sees Eliott Demaury walking out of an aisle. Lucas’s heart falls flat for a minute before picking speed again. Why does the universe feel the need to ruin everything for him?

“Ugh- What the hell.”

Lucas’s little grumble causes Eliott’s attention. Something falls over his face as it turns dark. But then his eyes are softening (fake) and there’s a smile creeping up on his lips (also fake).

“Nice to see you too,” Lucas feels a pause as Eliott eyes him up and down, “- _zombie_.”

Lucas scoffs, “On my god you’re so smart.” Lucas watches as Eliott’s face transforms into something sour. “Tell me, what gave it away.”

“You just look the part. That’s it.”

Lucas chooses to ignore the malice in Eliott’s voice. He can deal with that later. He has more important matters to deal with right now. “Why the fuck did you have to come now?”

“Excuse me?”

Lucas shrugs his shoulders, “I was just on my way to convince Mika to fire you. They do that when you’re tardy and don’t care about the rules.”

“I’m sorry you have lost me. Are you talking about me or yourself?” Eliott speaks with his eyebrows raised to his forehead. There’s something extremely similar to smugness mixing with the infuriating smile on his face. Lucas can’t stress this enough, but he wants to slap that look from his face.

“Fuck off, Eliott. You know I was beginning to think a troll saw you walking on the street and finally realizing you belonged with them took you away. Might have made for a perfect missing story.”

“Careful Lallemant. You’re starting to sound like you were worried for me.”

“Me worried? For you? That’s as likely to happen as Tupac being alive right now.” Lucas scoffs. There’s something funny bubbling inside his chest. Anger. He really wants to moonsault Eliott’s fucking ass to Mars. That way, he won’t have to care about seeing him again. Ever.

Eliott’s face is as light as ever. It’s like whatever Lucas has to say doesn’t matter to him a bit. And it only bothers Lucas more. Eliott rolls his eyes before fixing them on Lucas again. “Or as likely as you learning to draw a decent penis. Or a stick figure. Or whatever those funny little things are supposed to be which you keep throwing my way.”

And Lucas. Well, he’s mad. There’s a storm inside him waiting to lash out. And just as he’s about to open his mouth and launch into every cause of why Eliott shouldn’t be insulting Lucas’s drawing, there’s a sound of footsteps approaching which Lucas quickly catches on and snaps his mouth shut. No amount of insulting Eliott is worth than Mika slandering him for not being decent with Eliott. It has happened so many times before that Lucas has lost count.

“Eliott?” Mika calls as he appears in Lucas’s field of vision. Eliott turns his neck to the side as Mika approaches the two. He stops besides Eliott, his eyes moving from him to Lucas.

“You two weren’t fighting again, were you?”

Lucas hold his breath in as Eliott gives him a once over. But then his face morphs into a sinister smirk, and Lucas has to take a deep breath to hold himself back, “No, Mika. We were just having a friendly _conversation_.”

Mika supports a look of pure incredulity as he turns his gaze towards Lucas. “For some reason I find that incredibly hard to believe.” He shakes his head at the two individuals, before addressing Lucas once again. “But whatever. I was coming to tell you that you can take the rest of the day off. God knows you look like a minute short of falling to the ground. Like a zombie.”

And Lucas turns every shade of red imaginable under the sun – and as Eliott’s too proud of a face fades out of his vision when he turns to leave, Lucas imagines a universe where he doesn’t let Eliott Demaury succeed every time he manages to get on his nerves. And where Lucas isn’t bothered by him as much as he is – and as coward to put up a fight of his own.

But till the universe in created, Lucas has his imagination to rely on. That, and a couple pieces of papers.

*

Lucas makes his way to the dorm in a state suspended between anxiety and calm. He doesn’t know why one half of him feels like it’s floating above the clouds, while the other half literally feels like it’s going to sink right back to the ground and refuse to cooperate with him if he tried. He knows a part of it has to do with the fucking letter he sent to the cupid the other day – the one with the dicks drawn all over it from front to back. Call him a fucking idiot or whatever, but given Lucas’s lack of good fortune and Yann’s declarations from time to time about how Cupid8776 is going to have Lucas’s head hung from the middle of their living room like a prized trophy – Lucas is now beginning to worry that the said head of his is not going to stay on his fucking neck for long.

And then there’s the other half of his problem. It’s the one Lucas is most troubled by. It’s what keeps him constantly questioning himself. And it’s totally, completely, a hundred percent related to Eliott Demaury.

Sometimes, in moments of pure stupidity, Lucas wishes he could understand where Eliott was coming from with the way he treats Lucas. He wishes he knew what Eliott thought Lucas had done to hate him this much. It always leaves him confused and so, so angry; to see Eliott acting like he does whenever he’s around him.

Lucas knows his own reason of hating Eliott. And well, it would have helped him a great deal in planning his moves and to better his strategy around Eliott if he knew his as well.

Yann’s standing in front of the body-sized mirror placed in the corner. He’s dressed in a bright blue shirt and what Lucas thinks is his only pair of clean jeans. (He hasn’t done his laundry in years.) Lucas takes his shoes off before creeping behind Yann and keeping his body away from the mirror.

“Got a date tonight?”

Yann jumps ten feet in air when Lucas sneaks behind him. He turns around with a force, eyes widened to the size of saucers. Lucas laughs when Yann places a hand on his heart, sighing dramatically in relief.

“You scared the fuck out of me.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Lucas smiles when Yann turns back towards the mirror. “But you didn’t answer my question. Going somewhere?”

Yann eyes him from the mirror as Lucas settles himself on his bed. Yann turns around and locks eyes with Lucas. “Yeah. I – uh, I am meeting with my match.”

Something lifts inside Lucas, “That’s amazing Yann.” And then, after a heavy pause, “I don’t mean to be rough or whatever but what if they-“

“I know how much you hate the System and how realistic your ass tends to be, but trust me, I’m not walking into some trap set up for my murder or something, Lucas,” Yann has the kindest smile on his face, and his eyes are soft. Lucas doesn’t take offense on the first half of his statement. It is true so why would he. “I met up with Chloe the other day. She seems nice.”

“Chloe,” Lucas repeats the name. It has a nice ring to it. Better than _Eliott_ , of course. “Well, I’m happy for you, Yann. And just so we’re clear, I’m not coming to pick your drunk ass later, okay?”

“Wouldn’t be a need for it.” Yann says, and Lucas knows he can trust him. “Well then, how do I look?”

“Hot,” Lucas says without missing a beat, “If I were Chloe I would definitely want to tap _that_.”

Yann shakes his head, laughing as he picks his jacket up from the chair. “You’re a ha-“

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Lucas cuts him off with a roll of his eyes. Yann smiles down at him, “Be good for me and go to sleep early, okay?”

Yann starts walking backwards as Lucas does a poor execution of a salute. “Okay, boss.” Yann’s laugh comes muffled from the other side of the door as Lucas’s head hits the pillow, him knowing damn well he won’t be able to get any ounce of sleep.

Still, he tries.

*

**_Eliott D_ ** **_💩_ **

**_what the fuck lucas  
what the hell is this  
  
_ **

**_(pictured attached_ ** _)_

_it’s you having an aneurysm.  
can’t you see?? i thought you  
could _ _L_

**_and i thought  
that you were mature_ **

_~~(touché)  
~~well you thought wrong  
guess you’re not right always_

**_what the fuck is that supposed  
to mean??_ **

_nothing. don’t mind me  
isn’t there anything else you  
should do instead of wasting my time?  
  
_

**_wow didn’t know your time is that precious  
what do you need it for anyways?_ **

_i know it may come off as a surprise to  
you but there are more important things in  
my life than you eliott  
  
_

**_somehow i find it very hard to  
believe  
what things??_ **

_this microbiology assignment,  
for one_

~~-~~

_did you finally have an aneurysm  
and died??_

**_shut uppp  
i know it may come off as a surprise to  
you but there are more important things in  
my life than texting you, lucas_ **

_ooofff  
alrite no need to get snarky  
just tell me u’re sorry and go_

**_sorry??_ **

_yeah for interrupting my peaceful  
time_

**_with that assignment? i can’t imagine how  
peaceful that must be_ **

_more peaceful than time spent  
with you if you want to know  
  
_

**_i know_ **

_so?_

**_??_ **

_my apology, eliott  
  
eliott?  
  
fucking dick i hope you know  
how much i hate you_

*

**_~~(i do)~~ _ **

*

**basile protection squad**

**basile  
**gys r v in fr frdy??

 **arthur**  
is your keyboard broken or smthn?

 **basile**  
nh im js v trd 💛  
m fngrs rnt wrkng  
r v in fr frdy??

_use text to speech you idiot_

**basile  
**your a savior lucas 💛  
no your with the apostrophe  
fuck i am too old for this shit

 **yann**  
??

 **arthur**  
YAANNNN  
how was the date man???  
  
**yann**  
good. it went perfect  
  


**basile**  
thts amzng 💛  
hld n a mnte  
that’s it guys my fingers are working  
again

 **yann  
**???

_we’re just going to pretend nothing  
happened here_

**basile**  
that’s a good call  
but GUYs answer the question pls

 _what’s happening on friday_?

 **arthur**  
some dude from basile’s art elective is  
having a party @ his  
the whole uni is invited, from what im  
hearing

 **yann**  
lucas?

_yeah okay  
i’m in if you guys are_

**basile**  
so it’s done?

 **arthur**  
yeah bas  
and change the group name for fucks sake 💛

**_basile changed the group name to arthur be nice challenge_ ** **_💛_ **

**_*_ **

Lucas walks out of his last class of the day with a pretty energetic Basile in tow. Honestly, as much as the guys (Lucas included) always tease Basile for his hyper self and high energy levels at every odd hour of the day, Lucas is low key grateful of Basile’s positive as hell energy. The guy is – just pure ray of happiness. Sometimes probably too loud and inappropriate, but still sent to safe Lucas from falling into an endless pit of despair.

And he kind of envies Basile for his energy. So.

Right now they are heading to the art department as Basile wanted to talk to his instructor about some quiz and Lucas is accompanying him. Basile is busy animatedly narrating the story of his childhood pet hamster name Neville (from harry Potter) which he buried in his backyard after he died. Lucas nods along to the story and offers his input wherever he finds necessary. Which is like once after every hundred or so words because Basile is talking at a speed unmatchable and seemingly in no need for Lucas’s thoughts whatsoever.

Lucas is fine with it, by the way.

“- and then my mom was the one who found him in his cage, dead. Turns out what we were labelling as him _not_ eating anything was actually him overeating. My parents refused to get me another pet after that.”

Lucas feels sorry for Basile as a look of pure sadness mixes with the previous happiness on his features. He places a hand over Basile’s shoulders in an attempt to comfort him, “I never had any pet, but my mom helped me plant some peonies in our garden when I was younger. They all died too, so.”

Lucas shrugs as Basile hangs on to him. Lucas’s mom has always been into gardening, and he used to help her with the stuff when he was still young. After a while of seeing the little seed she would have planted turning into beautiful plants, Lucas had decided to have some plants of his own. The peonies he got his mother to buy for him didn’t make it past three weeks, and put Lucas off of gardening forever.

“It fucking suck, man,” Basile drawls out, his face is in a frown. “But I’ve decided, when I’ll get a house of my own, I’m going to have as many pets I want.”

Lucas lets out a laugh when Basile gets lost in some childhood dream of his. The building come into view, and they both start walking towards it.

“You can come inside if you want,” Basile tells him. Lucas ponders on his request for a minute. But then his brain takes him on a journey – no. Not happening.

“Nah I’ll just wait for you here.”

“Okay,” Basile smiles, walking inside of the building, “Promise I’ll be back in five.”

It, in fact, takes more than that. Lucas stands with his back resting against the chipped paint of the building wall. He takes his phone out while he waits. Browses through the apps on there. Replies to Yann telling him he’s going out, and is mother asking him if he’s coming tomorrow.

A group of students passes him followed by a bouncy Basile.

“Everything good?”

“I finally convinced my instructor to let me take the quiz again,” He jumps on his feet, eyes bright, “She wasn’t even up to listening to me but I convinced her somehow.” Lucas smiles as he pauses midsentence, his expression faltering a bit, “Or well, Eliott did.”

“Eliott?” Lucas doesn’t like the direction their conversation takes when he starts walking after Basile, “What did Eliott do?”

“He talked with the instructor about me retaking the quiz. She has a soft spot for him so…” Basile shrugs, like it’s no big deal that everyone is in love with that asshole’s fucking face.

“Yeah, wouldn’t know why.”

Lucas’s attempt at muttering under his breath is intercepted clearly by Basile as he looks at him from the corner of his eyes. Lucas smiles sweetly, and Basile shakes his head at him.

“I still don’t know what your deal with him is. And at this point, I’m too gone to ask.”

“My deal with him?” Lucas scoffs, stopping in his tracks. Basile sighs but doesn’t push on, probably expecting what’s coming, “More like, what’s his deal with me. He hasn’t let me have a single tension free, non-miserable day since he came into my life.”

Basile shakes his head again, “You’re impossible to deal with.”

Lucas groans, “Yann calls me a _hassle_ , you call me impossible. What the fuck is wrong with you guys?”

“We’re getting smart.” Basile dodges Lucas’s hand flying in his direction with a great amount of precision and accuracy. Lucas raises that hand in a very crude gesture.

They start walking out of the campus towards their dorm buildings. A minute of silence passes before Basile opens his trash hole again.

“You know he hasn’t found a match either?”

Lucas narrows his eyes, “So?” And as the weight of Basile’s statement sinks in, his stomach starts churning, “Wait, what do you mean ‘ _either’_?”

Basile doesn’t look at him when he speaks, “As in you and him both.”

Lucas blanches. His stomach does a weird flip, “I really don’t like where you’re going with this conversation.”

“C’mon, Lucas,” Basile sings, his eyes crinkle as a grin overtakes his features. Lucas imagines his leg making contact with Basile’s shin. “You haven’t found a match. _He_ hasn’t found a match. You can’t tell me that it is just some coincidence and not fate pulling some strings.”

Lucas feels something bitter in his mouth, “Basile, I swear to god if you don’t shut the fuck up right now I’m going to tell Daphne every weird dream you’ve had about her. And yes, that includes the terrible sex dream from _that_ day too.”

Basile’s face turns grim, “You wouldn’t.”

Lucas smirks. _Got him_. “I so would. And besides, there’s nothing more terrible than – God, there’s nothing horrible than hearing me and Eliott and match in a sentence together. I pity the poor soul who would get stuck with him.”

Basile shakes his head for the hundredth time in a span of mere minutes, “Don’t beat it down just yet, Lucas. Be realistic.”

“I _am_ being realistic. A lot more than you.”

“I’m just looking at it in a positive way. You know when life gives you lemons-“

“-Squeeze them into Eliott Demaury’s eyes.” Lucas interrupts. Basile looks at him with so much disappointment on his face that Lucas has to double over in laughter, tears springing to his eyes.

“You’re impossible, Lallemant.”

*

The mobile placed on Lucas’s study table vibrates with a notification as Lucas finishes with the first half of his dreadful assignment. He thinks it to be the boys, probably confirming the time for the party later. Lucas closes the book he was reading, rubbing at his stinging eyes before picking up and unlocking.

There’s an email. From **cupidint.com**.

Lucas sighs, heart doing a weird beating dance but mind relaxed when he opens the email app on his phone. Setting himself up for yet another rejection (hopefully), Lucas opens the email.

> _Dear Lucallecoeur456,_
> 
> _The Cupid’s response to your request under letter no, 787ght has been dispatched to your address. You’ll find a digital copy of the letter attached herewith._
> 
> _Yours truly,  
>  Cupids  
>  cupidcollns@cupidint.com_

Lucas opens the attachment, his brain taking a moment to catch up with what his eyes are reading.

> _Dear Lucallecoeur456,_
> 
> _I feel immense happiness on announcing that your letter no, 787ght went through our Server and finally found a match for you. In these bleary times, when I was still thinking about yet another of your request getting rejected, this news couldn’t have come with better timing. I hope this letter brings you as much of joy as it did me._
> 
> _You’ll find the information about the person you’ve matched with on the next page._
> 
> _Yours truly,  
>  Cupid8776._

With clammy hands, Lucas opens the next image, his heart falling to his stomach and out of his ass. For a moment, everything comes to a stop as Lucas’s brain wills his eyes to believe the words they’re reading on the paper. In the name of Jesus Fuckin Christ-

> _Sender’s name: Lallemant, Lucas  
>  Status: Matched._
> 
> _Match name: Demaury, Eliott_

Eliott. Eliott Demaury. Eliott fucking Demaury.

 _No no no_. No fucking way is Eliott Demaury is his match. Tall fucking pretentious as fuck Eliott Demaury can’t be his match. Lucas refuses to believe it. _No_. There must be some sort of mistake.

Lucas feels the remaining part of his heart rising up to his throat as the onset of panic sets in his bones. His stomach cramps up horribly as he thinks of all the times Eliott Demaury has left him as a miserable mess. All the times he drove Lucas to the point of banging his head on a wall. All the fucking times Lucas wished he hadn’t met Eliott.

And it’s – fuck. it’s crazy and it’s unexpected and it’s so much fucking unbelievable that Lucas has to laugh. Except – except when he does, all that comes out is a fucking choked up sound overcome with disbelief and anger.

And for a moment, Lucas is confused.

And in that moment of confusion, he blocks everything and everyone away. Till all that’s left is the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears and the force of his thoughts racing in his mind. And it’s just that – Lucas’s dead brain and his numb heart which makes him pack up a small bag in so much hurry he doesn’t even know what he’s putting inside. All there is to see is a flash of colours, his erratic breathing, and a message sent to his mother that he’ll be coming today.

*

On the train to his mother’s house, Lucas tortures himself to read the email again.

It’s atrocious, is what this is. Lucas still can’t believe it. And no, he won’t ever believe it.

Just a few hours ago, he was telling Basile about how he can’t even imagine a sentence with his name associated with Eliott’s and the word match. And now, just thirty minutes ago, he received a full-fledged email all about that. It’s hilarious. And it’s fucking with Lucas in a way that he can’t manage to deal with anything or anyone and has to run away to his mother’s to sort everything out.

Because. Lucas hasn’t been able to get along with his cupid like Basile has. He hasn’t been able to get along with Eliott either. And see, these two have been the cause of each of his misery for the past couple of months or so.

And out of nowhere, one cause of his problems has matched him with another. Now that’s what a coincidence _doesn’t_ look like.

Ideally he thinks about his conversation with Basile today _…… not fate pulling some strings._ He thinks about his conversation with Yann… and then.

_Fucking May blunders._

Lucas opens the email app on his mobile and composes an email to his cupid about how absurd he thinks it really is. He’ll deal with the rest later.

*

Lucas’s mother had welcomed him with open arms. She didn’t let him stand outside for more than a minute, ushering him inside quickly. Lucas had followed her, not before giving her an hour-long hug at the door.

“I missed you,” he said, all the emotions the rollercoaster of the day had brought him, weighing him down. She rubbed his back in a soothing manner, pulling away when he didn’t make a move to do so.

“I missed you too, honey.” She had offered a watery smile with her eyes running over Lucas’s face. He could only imagine what he looked like. “Come inside. We’ll have a talk later.”

Lucas had followed her into his childhood bedroom which was prepped with clean sheets on his small, twin sized bed and a fresh towel placed on the dresser. She had told him to take a shower as she prepared a dinner. Lucas had obliged quietly.

Now he sits in the small garden which Lucas can tell his mother had spent a great time in planting all the various plants which were now at their prime as Lucas sits among them. The sky’s clear with glimmering stars. His phone has been going off continuously with notification so he put it on silent. He had snuck straight to the garden after his shower, remembering the days from when he was young when he’s spend hours on end sat on this very spot whenever he felt troubled or just – just wanted some quiet time.

Like now.

His head is a mess. A big mess. His heart is still beating erratically. His stomach hasn’t stopped churning even for a bit. He feels lost. Confused. And so, so mad.

He takes a deep breath and picks his phone up. Sure enough, he finds the group chat he has with the boys overflowed with messages. His eyes skim over a few on asking him where he is and why he isn’t picking his phone. Not finding it in himself to deal with all three of them, Lucas opens his chat with Yann, sending a simple message.

_yann?_

the reply comes in an instant. **_lucas what the hell where the fuck are you_**

 _i’m sorry,_ he types back _, I had to head back home. there was an emergency_

**_is it your mom?_ **

Lucas feels his stomach coming up to his throat as he replies. _yeah. i’m sorry for not telling you before leaving i was in a hurry_

**_it’s okay lucas. just don’t do this again. we were worried_ **

_i’m sorry yann. to arthur and basile as well. i didn’t mean to ruin your night_

**_you didn’t lucas. basile’s still dragging us to the party, if that makes you feel better_ **

_it does shdfg just don’t have too much fun without me. okay?_

**_how can we?_ **

Lucas lets out a breath, heart somewhat lighter. There’s another notification. Lucas finds it to be an email from the cupid I reply to his earlier one.

> _Dear Lucallecoeur456,_
> 
> _I understand that you feel our Server has made a mistake in matching you with Eliott Demaury. And I need to tell you that you’re wrong._
> 
> _See, this match or whatever name you want to call it, isn’t just a fluke. A lot of detail and work goes into making this match because you don’t know how the other person is going to turn out. And you really don’t want to be the reason of something terrible happening. So all of us here at CupidInt. make sure to do as much research as we can before pairing you up with another person we feel you’re compatible with._
> 
> _Also these pairings are not based on superficial interests or shallow facts. Your letter forms a considerable part of the final result during the whole matchmaking process, and we have a whole enquiry team which presides over the whole process. Your likes, dislikes, the stuff we know about you, our Server’s collection of your information – everything is considered before me make the correct match._
> 
> _But if you still think that we have made a wrong choice with your match, please feel free to email me about your reservations. Hopefully we will be able to reach a middle ground then._
> 
> _P.s I may not be able to reply to your emails should you decide to send them now. I am at a party and it would be rude to the guests for me to be glued to my mobile device._
> 
> _Yours truly,  
>  Cupid8776_

And Lucas is still reeling with anger and confusion. He was skeptic about the whole thing from the start; even more so now when a letter full of badly drawn dicks has decided to secure him a match. He’s mad, and dejected. Also, a little shit when he replies: _I feel a bruise to my ego that you’ve decided to have a party on my expense without inviting me._

Cupid’s reply is instant _: I can’t deal with you right now. I’m happy for once and won’t let you affect my mood anymore._

Lucas shakes his head a she turns off his phone. ‘ _Feel free to message me about your reservations’_ _my ass._

Lucas releases a breath. His heart has slowed with its beating, but there’s unease still clinging to his chest like a leech. Lucas doesn’t want to do this, he doesn’t want to feel like this. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling.

There’s a movement behind him, a rustling of steps, and his mother sits down besides him.

“Hi honey.”

Lucas hums, scooting closer to her and resting his head on her shoulder.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Lucas smiles, closing his eyes and letting the small moment of calm wash over him. He’s thankful for her presence now, and he’s thankful to know that she’s doing better.

“I was looking at the plants,” Lucas speaks in a hushed voice, His mother chuckles, and Lucas smiles as she catches on what he was insinuating.

“Do you remember how you planted those peonies when you were younger?”

Her voice is soft and like a dream. Lucas almost falls asleep.

“Hmm.”

“And do you remember what I told you when they died?”

(He was teary-eyed and snot-covered; telling his mother about how much care he had done for the flowers, and how often he had looked after them. And she had shushed him with a chocolate even though he already had one earlier that day, and her voice had been watery after. “We often care too much for things that don’t need to be looked after, Lucas. And maybe that’s what cause them to shy away from us. And in the process, they end up hurting us. Maybe what they need is space, but we’re too busy _not_ giving them that to notice. Some people are like that too. They need time, and space to grow and heal. And we disrupt the process by getting in the way. So remember this, Lucas, step away from whatever that hurts you. Even when they don’t seem to know it. And always, remember to give it time.)

Lucas looks up at her. She has years of pain on her face. There are lights inside her eyes, sweetness on her tongue.

“You said – you said to give it time.”

When she smiles, it’s a sight Lucas never wants to look away from.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think! leave a comment or kudos if you like.
> 
> eid mubarak to everyone celebrating. please stay safe and have a blessed one!!
> 
> find me on tumblr: [@demauryss](https://demauryss.tumblr.com)


	3. herculean strength

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lucas's single functioning braincell expires after dealing with the aftermath of his letter, stress load from university, and some half apologies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this chapter literally killed me. i hope everyone's having a safe quarantine and that this offers you a break from the uncertain time.
> 
> please ignore any mistakes i'll catch them up later!
> 
> happy reading :))

Lucas has generally been anxious of running out of the time he has in his hands. Always, without a doubt. Ever since his feet started supporting his body properly and he was able to string together meaningful sentences and not just garbled sounds only his mother possessed the power to decipher, there came an extra sense which made him acutely aware of the three black lines determining ever walking moment spent in his life. It was a start – a jolt to make him more mindful with the way how he chose to spend the time which was always ticking away. And with that, came the crippling fear of missing out on everything which seemed important. Falling behind. And – as fate would have it – the feeling that he wouldn’t be able to catch up.

More times than he can count, he’s dreamed about missing his school bus just because he took a minute too long to wear his socks (he walked to the school with his mom’s hand clasping his little one. So why would he have a dream including one was out of his little mind). He’s dreamed about being late and then dealing with the not-so-good consequences (it’s this dream which became a reality later own – one which he is still living). He has dreamed terribly about all the ways time could fuck him over, leaving him in the form of a measly, awful mess with nowhere to turn to – ironically, when the time comes.

So.

After all the years of lying on the small bed still too big for his little legs to hop on to - before his legs grew the appropriate size and even after when all they did was dangle over the edge unceremoniously increasing the chances of a ghost grabbing them – and thinking about whether or not he’d be quick enough to catch the passing tide of time – here’s a thing Lucas can’t work out now.

And it’s how the second hand of the clock hung on the wall in front of him literally takes an hour to move a second.

Here in this room, he’s reminded of the time he would sit in his philosophy lecture, discreetly glancing at the time device hung for his torture and trying his best not to fall asleep, willing the hands to move faster but they would drag as if passing through mounds of sand offering heaps of friction against their movement. It feels kind of like that now. When it feels like the time is dragging exceptionally slow with every bit of intention of driving Lucas to land into his grave.

Well, if he hasn’t already been driven yet.

But believe him when he says this – because in the time that he’s spent with his mother, he’s learnt how to make bread from scratch (after a failed attempt of blowing up the microwave and his mother almost banning him from her house). He’s also become the reason why now there is another patch of the garden filled with the plants which he got on his run to the nearby park.

But, the most surprising and mind-boggling, he’s completed _and_ submitted the cursed microbiology assignment hours before it was due.

And Sunday has just started.

Lucas has been hunched over his laptop screen last night, eyes burning so much that Lucas felt they were rendered totally incapable to produce anymore tears, and every cell of his body just begging him to fall back on his bed and never get up. But his brain had relented – and it had taken him close to seven hours and someone striking a hammer in the farthest corner of his brain – and in the end, he was left with a couple hundred pages constituting his assignment (he’s just reaching), a twisted stomach and hands shaking from the deadly amount of caffeine he had consumed swimming inside him.

The blackened air around him is tinged in a bluish hue when he turns to bed. He isn’t able to rest his eyes for more than a minute, jolting up unknowingly time after time. So he gives up after two hours of broken sleep, bunches the covers up to his ears, and hums quietly to _You Are My Sunshine_ , remembering the times his mother would sing it to him whenever he had trouble sleeping.

Which constitutes almost every night spent under this roof.

His mother walks in shortly after that, a cup of chamomile tea in her hands.

“I heard you walking around the kitchen last night,” she says while placing the cup on the side table. Lucas shuffles on the bed, making as much space as he can for her while still making sure he doesn’t fall off the bed. “Did you have trouble sleeping again?”

“A bit, yeah.” He places his head on his mother’s lap, nodding his head when she starts running a finger through the mess Lucas almost pulled out of his skull last night.

His mother hums and Lucas closes his eyes, willing his body to relax and his heart to beat a little slower. It works exceptionally well, as his limbs begin fidgeting, and he starts hearing the pulsing of his heart in his ears too.

Fucking fantastic.

“It’s the change of environment, I think,” There is a soft edge to his mother’s voice as she starts voicing the probable reasons for Lucas’s troubles concerning sleep. And Lucas can’t tell her how far off that statement possibly was and for how long it has actually been going on. So he has nodded, and tries to doze off, but the hammer lodged in his head prevents his eyes from closing and his body from fully giving away to the tiredness hanging his body down.

He listens in, feeling the tight muscles in his body become lose as his mother deviates from the track of Lucas finding it hard to adjust after spending months cooped up inside his dorm room to how she is sure that Lucas has lost a lot of hair (which – no surprise there since his hair has been falling like crazy in the past two months or so). Then she tells Lucas of the time when she was nine or ten and there was a boy in her class whose sisters had added some hair removing cream into his shampoo so he came to the class with half of the hair on his head gone.

Lucas laughs along with her, in the middle of mentally applauding the sisters of the said boy for coming up with such a brilliant plan and himself formulating the methods he could try to make use of the prank on certain someone when the hammer inside his head had strikes once again, his eyes involuntary moving to his phone placed on the dresser near the bed.

Something ill then blooms inside his throat, heart picking speed again, and stomach in knots so painful he has to let out a sound, interrupting his mother mid-sentence.

“Mama?”

“Yes, honey?” 

Lucas gulps, playing with the fraying thread of the comforter, eyes focused down.

“Do you – do you ever regret not writing to the Cupids?”

It’s a totally different and surprising thing to ask given the nature of the conversation they were just having. Lucas knows his mother thought so too as well. But when he chances a tentative glance up her face, he finds the beginning of a smile, and eyes covered in a thin film of light.

Lucas breathes deeply.

“I did write to the Cupids. Several time.”

And- and Lucas was unaware of that. His mother and him – they never had a deep talk regarding the System and all since he had made pretty clear growing up that he hated the System with every fiber of his being. And so his mother never brought up the topic around him, nor did he around her.

“Really?” He shuffles into a sitting position, the covers making a cocoon around him falling around his body. “I never – I didn’t know that.”

Her face is light as her eyes move over Lucas’s face. He figures steering the conversation around, but there’s nothing but softness on her features.

“Yeah, I – the first letter I sent was a bit after my seventeenth birthday. A girl I knew had just found her match and I – I wanted to find mine too.” She laughs, and Lucas feels a dip inside his stomach. This feels uncomfortably close to home. “But that letter never met a positive response. Nor did the other ten which I sent in after that. I got impatient. Angry. At myself and the System. So then I gave up. And,” she swallows, and Lucas feels lost. “Here we are.”

She looks at Lucas with a wet smile, eyes brimming with something Lucas can’t recognize. There’s no regret, no tears. For once she looks young. Her face bright and eyes equally so. For once she doesn’t look tired.

Lucas keens.

“But to answer your question, do I regret it? I regret rushing and not finding it in myself to write another letter. When the others got rejected, another one wouldn’t have mattered, yes? But maybe it would have. _Maybe_. There’s no guarantee, right? So yeah, sometimes I do. Sometimes, when I’m in over my head. When I am tired. Exhausted. But then I remember that I have put the worst behind me. And then, nothing matters anymore.”

Lucas feels a heaviness in his head. But his chest feels like it’s breathing for the first time in years. His mother smiles at him – and he gives a small one in return. Things with her and his father – they weren’t good. She became worse when he left, and the situation was made harder with Lucas still in high-school. Fortunately, he was able to get her proper care and treatment during that time, all the while working his ass to secure a scholarship for the uni. It was a hard couple of years, but they had made it through.

The thought of there being chances of them avoiding it altogether makes the insides of his stomach cave in on themselves.

“But I must ask,” his mother smiles, a lilt to her voice which Lucas doesn’t like it a bit, “why the sudden interest in the System? Had you not sworn to hate them for the rest of your life?”

Lucas chuckles as his mother raises an eyebrow. Time for a bit of truth. “I did write to the cupids, if that’s what you’re curious about?”

“And?”

He shrugs his shoulders, omitting the rest of the story where he’d admit that out of a total of the forty-one letters he sent to his cupid, only one came back with a positive response which seems more like a summon to damnation. He doesn’t tell her that apparently out of the 6,999,999,999 people in the universe, the only one the cupid thought was suitable for Lucas was the fucking person Lucas has sworn to hate for the rest of his life, and one put on earth specifically to make Lucas run screaming for the hills.

He doesn’t tell her this. Instead, he whips out the friend card, and narrates a thinly veiled version of his story.

“You remember what I used to say whenever someone asked me about the System? That it’s a govern-“

“A government scam. Yes, how could I forget. I was the one who spent hours calming down little Julie after you tried to scare her away.”

His mother has a faux offended face on as he laughs behind his closed fist. That had been quite an enjoyment. “There was no trying about it, mind you. Julie looked a minute away from shitting her pants.”

“ _Lucas_ ,” His mother chides, failing to hide the smile on her face. Lucas lets out a sigh, resting his back against the wall next to his bed.

“But about that government scam thing, I’ve proof that it’s true. You see, a friend of mine recently got matched after several of his letters got rejected. And I’m talking _heaps_. And, there’s this dude who literally can’t stand the sight of him. Always making sure to annoy the living daylights out of my friend; pulling childish pranks and such. One time the dude spray painted the space in their work place where my friend usually sits. He was late that day, and didn’t know there was wet paint and sat over it, getting it on his clothes. And what’s worse is that he ran into the dude earlier and he didn’t even have the decency to inform him about the paint—“ he pauses, making sure his mother is following his story. He finds her eyes fixed on him intently, pressing him to continue. “So anyways, his letter comes in, and what does he find? The same dude matched with him. Now you can’t tell me that this isn’t a scam.”

He finishes heavily, not noticing that his breathing has increased and his hands have turned into fists, nails digging into the skin of his palms. He so – he’s so angry, and sad. And fucking tired of all this mess and not getting an ounce of sleep in four days. God he wants to- he wants to-

“Your friend.” She interrupts him softly. Her eyes are focused on something over Lucas’s head. “What does he think about that guy?”

“He hates him, of course,” Lucas replies matter-of-factly, like he’s pointing towards a pretty clear face. “I thought that bit was obvious.”

His mother supports a contemplative look on her face. Her eyes move from the spot they were fixed upon to meet Lucas’s eyes. They turn upward in a smile, tucked in the skin forming little lines around them. She sighs, then runs a hand through Lucas’s hair, making it stick up haphazardly.

“Your friend has a lot of stuff to work out then.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Her smile enlarges, then she gets up from the bed, leaving Lucas in a mess of thoughts, “Nothing that important for you to worry your head over. Now,” she starts walking towards the door, steps slow but sure, “I’m going to make some breakfast, Lucas. If you want something to eat…”

She leaves after that, smiling warmly at him. Lucas notices the cup of the tea his mother brought him, now cold along with the realization which makes an uncomfortable home inside his bones. But still, he wills his limbs to move, follows his mother into the kitchen as she makes a pretty heavy breakfast for him, and forces it down his stomach, all the while knowing it won’t be going to stay there for long.

*

Lucas spends most of his time with his mother. He helps her around the house as much as he can; cleaning the kitchen for her, doing the laundry and minimal stuff like that which he hopes is enough to lessen the burden on her shoulders. He tries to make up for his absence, accompanying her during her watch of some tv show he forgot the name of, and doing his best to appear interested when she calls him out for not paying any attention.

Willow, his mother’s nurse, comes by in the afternoon for her weekly checkup. She tells Lucas of her progress. It’s a bit that cheers Lucas up, and when she leaves, Lucas finds himself walking towards his mother’s garden.

The sun’s out when Lucas positions himself on the grass. He lets his brain wander off then, thinking about everything which has occurred in the last seventy-two hours giving him a major existential crisis. His stomach is in knots, body restless. His phone vibrates in his pocket, but he ignores it.

Lucas closes his eyes, letting out a breath as he lays on the grass. There’s a hundred tracks in his brain and an equal amount of the train of thoughts. For once in his lifetime, he doesn’t know which track to pick and walk on.

(There’s one about the System. One about Cupid8776. Out about his match. And the rest ninety-six are about Eliott Fucking Demaury.)

(So naturally, he ends up picking that one.)

He doesn’t get it. Eliott is this idiotic pretentious annoying as fuck asshole and Lucas. He is just a miserable mess. He doesn’t understand why Eliott would be his match – someone he hates so much. Someone he hasn’t had a single decent conversation with. Someone who is out for Lucas’s blood. Someone so cold with his face in a dreadful sneer Lucas is almost made to run for his life.

Someone who reminds Lucas of an infuriating toddler living just to make sure Lucas’s blood stays boiling and he inevitably dies of high blood pressure.

(It’s like that report he read many years ago: _even pet stones can tell they’re not compatible_.)

And it’s not like he considers Eliott to be someone he could consider getting together with. It’s just – all of his maddening persona and the oath he’s taken to drive Lucas up against the wall aside, Lucas has seen him with people other than him. He becomes this _charming_ and – and delightful gentleman with kind eyes and bright smiles. He’s a completely different person Lucas is sure is just a part of his imagination. It’s like when he sees Lucas a switch is flipped inside him, turning him into this irritating dick and Lucas doesn’t really know what to feel about that.

(He’s sad, simply put. So he takes it out on him in the only ways he knows: he becomes an equally annoying dick.)

And he doesn’t know if he affects Eliott as much as he affects him. If he leaves him as miserable as he does. If he stays up at night like he does.

And it bothers him to no end. He knows next to nothing about Eliott and his match. Basile’s been on his case of not finding one forever but he’s quiet now. He doesn’t know if Eliott sent his letter or not. If he got one in response. If he’s as bothered by it as Lucas is.

But then again, his phone has been blissfully quiet since he got here.

Lucas sighs, chiding himself for giving Eliott too much of his mind. He looks up into the clear sky. There’s a cloud which looks distinctly like a penis Lucas could clearly get behind. He then closes his eyes, berates himself a little more.

And starts the cycle all over again.

*

It’s a little after noon that he finds his phone vibrating. It’s Celine, so Lucas prepares himself for the worst before picking up the call.

“Lucas Lallemant,” her voice is crisp and loud. Lucas winces. “I’ve sent you fifteen messages in two hours and do you know how many you replied to? Zero, Lallemant. _Zero_.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, biting on an apple his mother thrust in his hands as he was making his way into the kitchen. “I figured if what you need is important enough then you’d call me. And you just did. So who’s the winner here.”

He hears Celine curse him on the other line, and the laugh which bubbles out of him isn’t forced.

“Why the fuck would you assume that I’m only reaching out because I _need_ something from you? I knew you were a bit of an asshole, but that’s just low for you, Lucas. I didn’t expect that from you.”

“Really?” Lucas forces his tone to sound offended, “When the _fuck_ have you ever reached out if not asking _me_ for favours? I feel betrayed.”

It’s true, and Celine knows it. She needs Lucas to cover her shift? She’d come with a couple of Kit-Kats and a smile so big Lucas would be floored. He needs her to do so as well? He would do all her work and bring that disgusting liquid type thingy with little balls floating inside from the café literally on the other side of the city and still she would take years to accept Lucas’s request. Then she would need Lucas to flirt with her to make that girl she doesn’t even know the name of who works in the ice-cream parlour across the street jealous. Lucas would sigh, send a prayer to the sky and fucking _flirt_. (She would admonish him for being worse than a first grader, and Lucas would threaten her that he would tell the girl everything and she would shut her mouth.)

And when he would need her to help him set up a prank for Eliott Demaury, she would act as if he has just asked her to donate her kidney. (The answer would be obviously _no_ , if you’re wondering.)

It’s how their relationship works, no hard feelings there.

“Oh hush now,” Celine is laughing now, “Anyone would love to give me favours.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Lucas bites his lip to control in his smile, “You should ask the girl across the street. Maybe she would _love_ it too.”

“ _Lucas_!” It’s a whisper-yell, enough to send Lucas doubling in laughter.

“Okay, sorry. But may I ask why the sudden interest in this call?”

Celine lets out a low hum. “I don’t know- I just wanted to ask how you were doing.”

“This really isn’t setting you good, Celine. I hope you know that.”

“It’s the truth!” She whines, and Lucas chuckles, “You just- you aren’t someone who’d take a couple days off in a row. You’ve never done this before. So I was maybe a bit worried?”

Lucas’s heart gives a painful tug. He’s touched. But he can’t let her know that.

“Awww!” He fake gushes, making sure his voice doesn’t crack, “Does little Celine has a heart?”

“I hope you know I’m never calling you again.” Her voice sounds offended, but Lucas knows she’s anything but.

“I know.” His voice is a whisper when it’s met with static on the other side. There’s a sound of a breath, and she’s speaking again.

“But you’re alright, yes?”

“Yes, Celine. I’m perfectly fine.” _Nothing’s wrong. Definitely not having a breakdown over my deranged cupid making the deranged enemy I have my cupid. Perfectly normal._

“Good, then get back here quick. We miss your annoying ass.”

Lucas scoffs, “I’ll have you know my ass is many things. The best? Absolutely. Annoying, definitely not. But wait, who the hell is ‘we’?”

“Uh- Did I say ‘we’? I meant ‘me.’ Me miss you. Or well, misses you I guess.” There’s an uncomfortable chuckle at the end, and Lucas is so confused. “Okay…”

“Ah, then I guess I should go, Lucas.”

He’s about to speak his goodbye too when he remembers something. “No, wait Celine. I need to ask you for a favour. I promise I’ll treat you whatever you want when I get back.”

Celine’s voice wavers a bit when it comes back. “What kind of favour?”

Lucas breathes in deeply. He knows what he’s asking her to do probably comes in the classification of exploiting someone’s trust. But there’s no person Lucas knows that _he_ trusts more than Celine. So.

“I need you to find out if Eliott has found his match or not. And please, don’t let him know that I asked you to do so.”

“Lucas,” there’s apprehension in her tone, “is this for that rivalry thing you two have going on? Because Lucas if this is you pulling some sort of prank or something-“

“-No, no.” Lucas cuts her off. There are cramps in his belly. His heart feels heavy. “This isn’t. I promise. I just- I can’t tell you why. Not right now. And I understand if you refuse to do so. But I’ll owe you a big one if you agree.”

The line is silent. Lucas can hear her contemplating. Unknowingly, there’s a glimmer of hope lighting in his chest. He doesn’t know its source; just that it’s there.

“This better not bite me in the ass later, Lallemant.”

Lucas laughs, relief from somewhere spreading in his body.

“I’m sure it won’t.” He promises, heart caught in his throat.

 _I’m just not sure about it biting me,_ is what he thinks but doesn’t say.

*

Lucas returns to the university on Sunday evening. Departing from his mother was a hard fucking ordeal. There were a million thoughts inside his brain and tiny hands all over him just pushing him to stay. That way, he could just stay with her and wouldn’t have to deal with anything outside the little cocoon he had formed with her.

But after trying very hard not to let the tears gathered in his eyes as his mother kissed his forehead, he had to leave. Willow had repeatedly told him that she was now doing okay, so with that thought in his mind, he had boarded the train with a heavy heart. Stomach in tight knots and breaths shallow.

A two hour train ride and a fifteen minute taxi ride later, Lucas finds himself in front of the reception desk in his dorm building, knowing that’s where all the mailed packages for the students arrive.

“Hi,” he greets the receptionist. He’s a pretty nondescript sort of a person, the only interesting thing regarding his features being the tall frown plastered on his face. It’s like he’s given up on the world. And truly, Lucas can’t argue with that. “Has there any letter arrived for Lucas Lallemant?”

“Can I see your ID?” The man says in a heavy voice and when Lucas gives him his student ID, takes a minute long look at it as Lucas leans impatiently over the wooden desk. The man then kneels down, and Lucas tries his best not to peek over the desk, and when he emerges he hands Lucas a blue envelope, with his name printed on the back.

“Thank you,” Lucas supplies, before turning and hiding the envelope in his bag. God forbid if Yann sees him with this envelope, Lucas won’t ever hear the end of it. Besides, it’s actually easy lying about never receiving this letter than explain to his thick headed friends about this fucking bad luck of his.

But he doesn’t have to go out of his way to seek them out. Because the party’s waiting for him when he enters his and Yann’s dorm room.

“Lucas!” It’s Basile who screams, leaping up and latching onto Lucas in a very koala-like hug. It’s not even seven yet, but Lucas can confidently provide that he’s drunk. Way past drunk.

“Welcome back, mate,” Arthur raises his own bottle of what looks like to be a beer, and Yann waves at him from his bunk of the bed. All the while Basile stays glued to his front.

“Hey,” Lucas pats his back and he lets go, smiling at him with his teeth on full display. He motions towards Arthur who sits at the edge of Lucas’s bed, “We were waiting for you. Guess what?”

Lucas leaves his belongings at the door, walking with Basile and taking his place on the bed. “What?” Arthur passes him the bottle, which he politely declines. He has a nine am philosophy lecture tomorrow. He wouldn’t even wish his enemy to go through it with a hangover.

Okay. Maybe when the said enemy is Eliott. Then he would wish it with his whole fucking heart.

“I got my letter and I’ve matched. With Daphne, man. God, I’m so happy.”

Lucas almost chokes on the air he was supposed to inhale. His heartbeat falls. If Basile matched then…..

“What about your letter, Lu?”

Yann’s voice comes from above him. Basile’s busy in his own happiness, and Arthur has a world of his own. Lucas can easily get out of this. “I didn’t send a letter this time.” He gulps. The back of his neck prickles with heat, “I told you Yann. Remember?”

“Oh yeah,” Yann says. “I forgot. Sorry.”

Good. He heaves a sigh. His friends aren’t the problem right now. He can get them off his back easily. The main problem is the fucking dick Lucas doesn’t know how to deal with. Or rather, he doesn’t know how to face him.

“Hey guys,” Basile speaks from his place on the chair in front of Lucas’s bed. His eyes are focused on the wall. “Do you think I should let Daphne know now or tomorrow when I see her in class? I don’t have any idea how to approach her about this….”

And as the topic of their conversation takes a different turn, Lucas forces himself to relax. Basile’s been in love with Daphne for as long as he’s known either of them. They met when Emma had a brief fling with Yann when they weren’t as serious about the whole matchmaking shenanigan as Yann is now. Emma still isn’t but Yann had an epiphany out of nowhere and he ended things with her, both deciding to stay friends. (Yann drunkenly confessed later he had a dream where his supposed match was strangling him with the pillow Emma had gifted him. Not only did he burn the pillow, but hasn’t had a single hookup since. Lucas has yet to take a page out of his book.)

But he knows Basile, and he knows Daphne. He knows Basile is a good gut at heart regardless of all the shit he gives him for being a loud, inappropriate asshole. It’s just that he lacks functioning brain cells, which often puts him in delicate situations.

Arthur offers his two cents, suggesting to wait and let Daphne approach him herself. Yann gives his consent, while Lucas stays silent. What if Eliott’s waiting fo-

He feels the need to puke, so he shuts off his brain, taking the bottle of beer from Arthur which he rejected earlier.

“And her birthday is coming. What do you think I should do?”

Lucas takes a gulp from the bottle. Yann comes down from his bunk and settles in next to him. “How do you know when her birthday is?”

“You remember Imane’s birthday party? She was having a talk with Eliott and I managed to listen.”

That makes tonne of sense. Because given his knowledge about Basile and Daphne, he knows they’re not at the stage of sharing details like birthdays and s-

Wait.

“Eliott?”

Three pairs of eyes simultaneously turn towards him. He ignores the look which is exactly replicated in each of them. Lucas has more pressing matters to deal with. He remembers the party was in January; he met Eliott in February.

“Did you guys know Eliott from before?” Lucas looks from Arthur to Yann. There is a deep network of lines plastered on Yann’s forehead, and the look he has in his eyes is quite different from the rest. Lucas wants to hide away from it.

“Yeah, Lucas.” Basile slurs. “We met him at the party. You probably don’t remember because a) you were drunk out of your mind and b) you were deeply busy with that devil guy.”

“What?” Lucas furrows his brows. He doesn’t remember meeting Eliott or any devil guy.

“Damien,” Yann comes to his aid, and Lucas wishes he hadn’t when he tilts his neck to the side.

“Ahh, that guy with his hair like two devil horns.” Something in Lucas’s head rings a bell as he focuses on avoiding the meaning behind the look on Yann’s face. “I remember him now.”

“Yeah, you went somewhere with him when we met Eliott. That’s why we were surprised when the Eliott you work with and proclaimed to hate and the Eliott we met that night were the same person. It’s quite a small world.” Arthur raises his bottle into the air.

“But why didn’t you tell me you knew him before?” Lucas probably had the chance to avoid the ill-meeting. He idly wonders how his first actual encounter had he not drowned in all of Imane’s collection of alcohol which she had at the party even though she herself doesn’t drink.

"How could we have? You went feral when we as much as looked in his direction!" Basile giggles. "You can't blame us for putting our lives as a priority first!"

Lucas shoots him his middle finger, taking a long gulp of his beer.

And then reality snaps its long, witch-like fingers, and Lucas is left to feel sad again. Why does everything in him have to circle around that dick every fucking time?

He focuses back towards where Basile has planned an elaborate party for Daphne with his bottle of alcohol. He then looks at Yann and Arthur, who encourage Basile on as he speaks.

And it’s hardly a thought, and he’s not like this at all, but something inside his chest caves in a little.

He wants to be as happy as them with his match.

*

**celine (non dion)**

**vol-au-vent from that nice little café  
down the street  
5 pm sharp at the store  
don’t be late**

_???_

**my payment, lucas  
i found what you asked me to**

_you did?????_

**yes lucas**

_and???_

**and i still don’t know why it matters  
but he says he hasn’t  
says he didn’t send the letter this time**

_oh okay  
thank you celine  
  
_

**not quite**

_yes yes i’ll bring your ‘payment’.  
happy? _

**very**  
**it’s a pleasure doing business with**  
**you lallemant**

_yeah whatever_

🖕

*

In the days that follow, Lucas gets kicked into the future by the uni. He has a vivid dream about failing one of his classes, so he spends as much time as he can with his nose buried into the books. The weight of assignments comes in full force, so he convinces Mika to give him a couple more days off, and promises on his life to make up later for all the time he’s taken off.

In the meantime, he laments his dick-full letter. (He really thought he was doing something with drawing penises on the letter, huh?) And, with a heavy weight on his chest, searches about CupidInt., and their not-so-secretive method about forming matches.

He finds an article on the topic. It basically confirms what Lucas was fearing: _No, matches aren’t based on the letters alone. The infamous Server has an aggregate of your information stored based on all the letters you’ve sent out in the past. That information is taken into account along with the new letter that you send every two weeks. So yes, it’s possible to get matched with someone who hasn’t sent a letter that session. Yes, it’s rare, but not impossible. And yes, the person you’ve matched with won’t know about it unless they wait for the next session to start to send in their request._

And while that rules out the possibility of Eliott lying, it does leave Lucas with a breather. The main concern eating him up was the thought of Eliott getting Lucas as his match. The person he’s hated since day one. Lucas isn’t thinking about getting with him one bit. He is his enemy too. But rejection would have hurt the same. And Lucas doesn’t know if he’d have been able to show his face around Eliott again.

Because despite of the shit Lucas gives him for crawling out of a gutter, there’s no denying that even if they did get along, he would have been _way_ out of Lucas’s league.

And that thought’s enough to make Lucas shut down for a week.

So Lucas sends a thank you to the stars for saving him from more humiliation; sends Celine that vol-au-vent he promised her; focuses on getting through another week of university and waits for the next request session to start.

Maybe he’d be able to change his fate.

*

(He later realizes how wrong had that been.)

*

Mika swallows him whole when Lucas enters the store after five whole days of absence.

“Kitten,” he ruffles his hair in a loving way. Lucas swats away his hand. “I was beginning to forget how you look like.”

“Are you joking Mika?” Lucas hears Celine emerging from the racks. She comes to stand in front of him as he offers her a huge grin at the sight of her previously blonde but now pink hair. Guess he’s not the only one having mental breakdowns these days. “You’d be a fool to think you’d ever get Lucas Lallemant to stop haunting you.”

“I missed you too.” Lucas quips at her. Mika walks away as Celine rolls her eyes, and Lucas doesn’t miss the hitch of her upper lip, before she effectively conceals it by the frown he is sure she forces on her face.

“I didn’t.” She asserts, eyes fixed on him. Lucas gives her his best puppy-dog eyes. “I had to do my work along with yours. But it’s okay since you’re here. Now you can do mine in return.”

“When was this decided?”

“Right now, actually.” She smirks, and Lucas feels her exterior slipping away. “Even Mika consents to this.”

Lucas rolls his eyes, but a smile comes up to his face nonetheless. “Okay, diva. Besides, aren’t I always doing your work for you?”

“Shut up!” She laughs, coming forward to sling her arm around Lucas’s. She walks them to the back of the store through the empty aisles. Lucas sees three medium looking boxes stacked on each other placed on the ground next to the shelf they’re standing against.

“What’s that?” He asks. Celine looks over her shoulder, and launches into heavy details. “They went on a cleaning spree, Eliott and Mika. You wouldn’t believe how much junk Mika actually has. This store looks small but you’d be surprised at the stuff which came out. So Eliott made it his job to get rid of every useless CD, record, DVD he could find. And here is the result.”

Lucas looks at the boxes placed in front of him in disdain. Eliott Demaury. It fucking had to be him again, huh.

Lucas shakes his head internally, focusing on Celine again who is busy raking through the shelf next to the boxes. She’s animatedly chatting up Lucas’s ears, unbeknownst to the fact that whatever she’s saying is passing through one of his and out the other. Still he feigns as much interest his sleep deprived brain can conjure at that moment.

“Oh wait,” she rushes out, thrusting the CD's in her hand towards Lucas. “Here, sort them out for me please. I just remembered something Mika told me to do ages ago.”

She’s gone with the wind, and Lucas is left standing with the cd’s in his hands. He moves forwards, right next to the boxes on the ground. His brain takes him on a journey as he spends his time on putting the CD's at their destined place. Like a clockwork, he thinks about his letter, what does it mean, and the crushing relief at the prospect of not worrying about Eliott-

“Celine, where’s the vinyl Mika brought yesterday?”

If he lives to make it far into the future, Lucas would say that his weirdly programmed brain is definitely at fault for every of his misfortune. But now, he’s pinning all the blame on the ghost and dick and fucking asshole who has no perseverance for Lucas’s safety, and apparently no fucking sympathetic bone in his body as well.

Because, like clockwork, Lucas doesn’t expect the intrusion. He turns around as his heart leaps. And as history has a repeat of itself, Lucas forgets there is a tower of boxes behind him. But he realizes too late.

(Too late being when he bumps into the top one forcefully and sends it and the middle one careering to the ground. There open tops spilling what looks like to be a separate assortment of CDs and DVDs, now completely mixing into one another.)

Lucas stares, jaw-slacked, as the explosion takes place. Momentarily he forgets he’s not alone, and is brought back to reality by a fuming Eliott Demaury glowering at him.

“What the fuck.”

Lucas snaps his eyes towards the figure. He’s staring at the mess on the floor. Slowly Lucas gulps, and as Eliott’s eyes travel upwards, Lucas’s hands get clammy.

“Seriously Lucas! What the fucking hell is wrong with you?!!” Lucas feels his throat tighten. No way does he get to be angry at him for something which wasn’t his fault. Okay, not _entirely_ his fault.

Lucas feels his chest rising, and before he knows, he’s committed a crime.

“They’re just some CDs Eliott. No need to get angry.”

Lucas knows he shouldn’t have said that the moment Eliott turns red. “Just some CDs? No Lucas. It’s the fact that I spent hours to sort them out. But no, you don’t realize that.”

Lucas shakes his head, “Then maybe you could have placed them somewhere safer. It’s not my fault that I didn’t see the boxes. And who the fuck stacks them like that?! It’s basic physics. I’ll help you sort them again.”

Lucas is a hundred percent aware of the fact he’s being an asshole. But he can’t stop. No way can Eliott put all of the blame on Lucas. Lucas was startled by _him_. He was the one who put the boxes that way. Not Lucas. And yeah, Lucas does have a fault, but he’s not the only one entirely in the wrong here.

Eliott is still red in the face when Lucas looks at him. His eyes are stone, a different type which Lucas hasn’t seen before. “You know what, Lallemant. It’s my fault that I got stuck with someone like you.”

Lucas takes a step forward, “Someone like me?”

“Yes. Someone insufferable and an entitled asshole who doesn’t give a fuck about anything other than himself. Someone not caring of the damage he inflicts upon others, just as long as he gets to reap the benefits th-“

“Frickin’, flippin’ shoot! What the sugartit happened here?”

Lucas feels Mika’s eyes on him. But he doesn’t dare look up from the spot on the ground his eyes have made a home on. There’s something prickling behind them as his heart deflates in his chest. He presses his fingernails into the palm of his hand to get a grip upon himself. He doesn’t know where Celine is; he could really use her loudness right now.

Lucas takes a deep breath, wills the heat on his cheeks to fade away. He looks up, finding Mika’s eyes moving between Eliott and him. Focusing his gaze on Mika, Lucas’s tries not to waver as he speaks.

“It’s my fault, Mika.” There is a pair of eyes drilling holes into his skull. Lucas forces it out of his head. “I tripped over the boxes, yeah. I’ll sort them again.”

Mika casts another worried look between Lucas and Eliott. Lucas keeps his face neutral. Or, attempts to. And when Mika still doesn’t look convinced, he adds a little smile at the end.

“Okay, whatever you say.” Mika sighs like he’s dealing with an unrelenting toddler. He then looks past Lucas, “Eliott, will you help me out at the front please?”

Lucas doesn’t move his gaze from Mika’s back as he turns and leaves after whatever affirmation Eliott must give him. His heart is still beating in his throat, his neck is burning.

He hears a throat getting cleared, an awkward exhale. “Lucas I-“

Lucas closes his eyes, stomach turning over, as he cuts him with a sharp shake of his head. “Don’t, Eliott. Just, don’t”

His voice cracks at the end. He doesn’t let himself focus on it, kneeling on the ground extending and up-righting the boxes tumbled over. He hears footsteps walking away, and he exhales the breath he doesn’t know he was holding.

The crescents shaped marks on his palm glisten under the light as Lucas picks up the first of the CDs strewn on the ground.

*

Lucas doesn’t let his mind stray for longer than necessary as he sorts the mixed DVDs and CDs in separate boxes. No one disturbs him. And still, in broken minutes, he finds himself thinking of what Eliott said. And Lucas doesn’t want it to, but it leaves his chest with a pang.

Lucas knows Eliott doesn’t like him. He knows he isn’t a saint either. It’s just that – he didn’t know Eliott thinks so low of him. And he doesn’t want to admit it. But it fucking hurts.

(And to think it’s the same person Lucas formed a match with.)

Sighing he picks up a box, taking it towards the front and places it by the counter. He hurries towards the back again, lessening his chances of running into anyone, as he brings the other two boxes and places them alongside the first one so that they can be taped and Mika can do with them whatever he wants.

Speaking of tape.

He looks around the counter, but doesn’t find it anywhere. He hears footsteps, and expecting the person to be Mika. He turns around, but stops midway. His face falling and heart picking up speed.

“Looking for this?”

Eliott stands with the packaging tape Lucas was looking for. He stays silent, averting his gaze as Eliott comes forward, sizing the boxes and taping them up. Lucas turns, ready to disappear, before Eliott’s voice stops him again.

“You know, most people would say thank you.”

That asshole. Lucas want to shut him up, and it takes a feat of herculean strength, but he ignores him instead, picking up his speed as he moves between the racks. He hears footsteps following him, but he doesn’t stop.

“Lucas. Fuck, wait!”

He stops in front of a rack, feels his stomach dipping. “Fuck off, Eliott. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

His body is in a weird state of calm despite of the cramping in his stomach or the restlessness in his limbs. His head seems to be at rest, which is all the bit confusing.

He feels a hand grabbing his arm, and before he has time to figure out what is happening, his body is being whipped around. Eliott doesn’t let go the hold of his arm as his eyes set in determination. Lucas feels his chest rising.

“What have I done to make you hate me this much?”

Eliott asks, his voice set and low. Lucas almost laughs. There’s a fire in the pit of his stomach. “What have you done?! Oh boy. Do you want it alphabetically or chronologically? “

Eliott stays silent, his face so close to Lucas that he can see the little freckles of colours inside the green of his eyes. Lucas remembers comparing them to sea plants.

“Chronologically it is then.” Lucas starts, yanking his arm out of Eliott’s grasp, the skin tingling with the way he was holding it. He doesn’t spend much time focusing on it. “February 11, you caused me to fall from a stool. February 16, gave me salt mixed with water in lieu of coffee. February 16 again, embarrassed me in front of Fiona. Do you get the gist or should I get going? It all goes downhill from there.”

Eliott’s eyes are unwavering as he looks down at Lucas. His cheeks are tinted, and his chest is rising and falling heavily. Lucas feels every need to cower away, but he’ll stand his ground today.

“Lucas,” Eliott breathes. Lucas swallows as his breath gets caught in his throat. Is that gold in his eyes or? “I-“

“I’m sorry but I’ll have to interrupt,” Lucas jumps apart as Celine’s voice comes crashing down on them. Eliott looks like he’s been slapped. And there, Lucas finds another of ways to piss Eliott off: don’t let him complete his sentences.

Celine looks amused when Lucas focuses back on her. There’s something lively in her eyes, and her lips is in a big smile. Where was she before?

“What do you want Celine?”

Lucas doesn’t come off as annoyed. Not a bit. He actually has no care for what Eliott has to say.

Celine’s lips lift upward. If it’s even possible. Her eyes move from him to a weirdly quiet Eliott standing off to one side. “Mika needs you two for something. If I knew you were busy in some weird foreplay thingy, I would have waited a bit.”

It isn’t heat from embarrassment which rises up Lucas’s neck. No. It’s definitely anger. At Celine. For assuming such a delirious thing. Lucas risks a glance at Eliott. He’s busy drilling a hole on the wall.

“Shut up Celine,” Lucas rebukes, moving to stand beside her. She still has the weird look playing on her face.

“Lucas and I were having a talk.” Eliott’s voice interrupts them suddenly. Celine focuses her attention on Eliott, who looks all the bit composed. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

“Talk?” Celine guffaws, starting to walk towards the back room. “I’m sorry. But I still haven’t worked out the deal between you two. One minute you’re at each other’s throat, and the next you’re having a _talk_.”

“We have our differences.” Lucas throws a glance in Eliott’s direction. “He might be the taller one but I’m definitely the one with brains.” He finds Eliott already looking at him. And if he can tell anything going on that lentil brain of his by looking at that face, Lucas can confidently say Eliott doesn’t look happy. _Good_.

“I’m- what?” Eliott falls into step with Celine and Lucas. “You didn’t just call me brainless?”

“Oh but I did, Demaury. What would you do about it?”

He’s already called Lucas the worst thing he can think of. Anything more wouldn’t matter.

“You’re- you’re a prick.”

“And you’re a dick.”

“Idiot.”

“Asshole.”

“Lucas, stop frowning. You need to learn to smile a little.”

“You need to learn to fuck off.”

“And you two need to step flirting and get a room! _Jesus fuck_! I don’t get paid enough for this.” Celine’s sudden yell makes Lucas snap his mouth shut. He turns towards Eliott, who looks ashen. And red. And all the bit humiliated.

They watch in stunned silence as Celine enters the back room, still muttering incoherently under her breath. Lucas runs a hand through his hair, moving it past his burning cheeks and burying it inside the pocket of his jeans. There’s a low thumping inside his chest, a flip inside his belly.

He glances up, and Eliott’s looking down at him with a smile. Lucas doesn’t feel the flip again. He _doesn’t_.

“Uh-“ He stammers, “Look, I’m sorry for all the things I said earlier. I’m-” Lucas looks on – no, stares, jaw open, eyes wide, as Eliott Demaury _apologizes_. He fucking apologizes.

Lucas in a million years wouldn’t have thought that he would get to witness such a day.

“I know it may not mean anything. But-“ He shuffles in his jacket. Lucas follows his arms, body frozen in shock, as he takes out a red package. “Celine told me you like them so I got you one.”

And it’s so far from an apology. But the red wrapper of the Kit-Kat shines beautifully as Eliott hands it to him. Lucas whips his eyes upward, the chocolate in his hand, eyes falling onto a quite nervous looking Eliott. He flashes a quick smile, and goes through the door Celine went through earlier.

Lucas feels a dip in his chest, heart beating in furor, as he presses a hand onto his burning cheeks, brain in havoc as a smile threatens to break over his unsuspecting lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the response this story has received. here's the fic tag on [tumblr](https://demauryss.tumblr.com/tagged/stws)
> 
> come yell at me on tumblr: [@demauryss](https://demauryss.tumblr.com/ask)


	4. (britney) spears my heart in two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when an unexpected visitor and a pool of realization cause lucas's life certificate to expire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry for the wait guys!! life got into the way but here's an almost 12k word chapter to make up for it.
> 
> happy reading :))

Things don’t go like Lucas expects them to.

(But that’s just him being a huge idiot at this point. Because, now, nothing goes according to his expectations. Getting matched with his (then considered) enemy? Bullshitting his way through the dreaded microbiology assignment and getting an A? Helping Basile in an elaborate plan to confess to Daphne and then have Daphne herself coming up to Basile for the purpose? Watch them be gross and so much in love it’s disgusting and totally envious? Have the same then-enemy-now-this-confusing-mix-between-an-ally-and-still-a-dick get him his favorite chocolate after apologizing to him? Go home and then have a darkened and much blurred image of those green eyes tucked in his brain keeping him from sleeping (again)? Actually spend the better part of his sleepless night in search of their owner on every social media he owns and come up empty handed?

Yeah, nothing is up to his expectations.)

It’s surprising, really, how fast things take a turn. It’s like, Lucas is driving on the edge of one road, and then swerving so quickly he loses control and almost gets flung outside the car through its window. (It also doesn’t help that he hasn’t learned how to drive, and Yann keeps reminding him that he’d definitely be the one out of the four of them who’d drive the car off of the cliff because he’s _just wired like that_.)

But still, even after all the odds against him for him being happy, it still happens. And he stops himself from thinking about it too much, stops the nagging thoughts persisting in his brain, keeping him awake at odd hours of the night, settling into the framework of cells and neurons starting every thought in his head. He stops himself. In hopes of the message sinking into every part of him with the blood pushing through his veins. In hopes of letting the flurry of currents rising in him minute by minute be turned to smithereens before they turn to something big; a thunder he cannot control, an avalanche which would destroy all of him.

But still, he stares at the underside of Yann’s bed, heart empty but head refusing to stay put. And he wonders. He wonders why. Why after all this time, the cupid assigned to him thought about showing off their skills. Why they had to go forward and pave the way for Lucas’s destruction now. When things were slightly looking up for him. When he’d accepted his fate. When his brain was finally clearing the fog which had dispersed over his senses.

And he hates it. He hates how he let things get so out of control. He hates how he didn’t see it coming. He hates how he doesn’t know when or how it all started.

*

But like all things, it starts with something small.

*

The email for the cancellation of Lucas’s last class comes in when he’s dragging a half-asleep Basile out of their microbial genetics class. That’s his proof of actually believing Basile to be much smarter than he looks because this dumbass sleeps through half of the classes and still manages to score better than Lucas does. Hell, Lucas is sure even if he spends all of his nights studying his ass off, he still wouldn’t be able to surpass Basile.

(Which is completely fine.)

Right now Lucas’s only concern is to make sure Basile’s half-dead brain doesn’t cause his body to fall on the floor and receive permanent damage as he shuffles after Lucas. The boys are waiting for them in the campus café, with Yann and Arthur both getting out of class earlier than them both. It’s time like this where Lucas feels grateful that his schedule lines up with his friends on certain days. When he could just have a talk with them and relax after a long day. Other times it’s a struggle trying to keep up with their chaotic energies, when Lucas would just rather hit the sack and forget the world for a bit.

But now, high on caffeine from the coffee he consumed before the class and with a restless thumping in his legs, Lucas wants to do anything but.

The café buzzes with its usual energy when Lucas enters with Basile in tow. Embraced by the scent of roasted coffee beans and vanilla and freshly baked bread Lucas spots Arthur and Yann at their usual place on the bar stools by the counter, waving at them from their place. Basile rushes past him, all semblance of sleep and exhaustion he had described to Lucas in the form of a terribly crafted and senseless poem seemingly nowhere to be found as a _whoosh_ of air follows Basile’s dash to the boys. Lucas shakes his head, chuckling to himself as he passes a crowd after Basile’s mad dash.

“I’m going on a date with Daphne tonight,” Basile had spent a major part of their walk to the café in telling Lucas the details of his date. So he finds it okay to tune the retelling out as the barista slips in a cup of milk tea in front of him. He thinks Yann must have ordered it for him as he turns his head to the right, reciprocating Yann’s ‘are-you-okay-smile’ with one of his own, albeit much smaller one and lacking conviction. He sees Yann’s eyes filling with concern as Basile’s voice fills his ears in a dull, reverberating background music. There’s a ‘Daphne’ thrown in after every two words or so. Lucas shakes his head internally. There are times when he still can’t believe the odds, but then Yann and Basile with their newly made and thriving matches have to go and remind him of his sheer luck.

Or lack thereof.

Yann seeks eye contact with him, which he begrudgingly meets. Basile’s voice has faded, instead it’s Arthur filling the space up with his issues he’s facing adjusting to the new hearing device his doctor has prescribed. Lucas tunes his ears to Yann, all the sleepless nights from the past catching up to him when Yann’s voice feels as if it’s making its way through a barrier made of lead. He feels like he’s groping through a layer of heavy mist in search of Yann’s words which fail to be grasped by his poor functioning brain.

“What did you say?”

Yann shakes his head, expelling a sigh as his shoulders drop. He looks as tired as Lucas feels, and it sends him into another bout of misery. He’s been too caught up in his own problems to even see how Yann is doing. He needs to have a talk with him. Maybe some time in this century.

“I asked if you’ll be going to the library later. I have some books which I need to return. But I’m sure librarian Jane will have my head on the plate after last time’s fiasco.”

Yann had retold wit quite an apologetic tone his adventures of how the librarian caught him and Chloe going down into town in the library a couple days ago. Lucas chuckles, “Yeah I’ll return them for you.”

“That clears out, then,” He pats Lucas on the back. Lucas purses his lips in the impression of a smile, turning to the world his head has created for him to get lost in. He feels the bustle around him die to a whir of mixed voices toned to zero and thoughts dialed up to a hundred. One of the last few times he was here in this café pops up in his brain, reminding him of how he’d run into Eliott and –

And the rest which had followed.

Lucas shakes the thought, closes his eyes and feels his hands tightening on the cup. The boys’ voices seep back in his head, along with the buzz of the café. For once he’s thankful for Basile’s talking and keeping Arthur and Yann’s attention from Lucas. Atleast now he’s able to let his misery eat him up without any questions asked.

It’s when the conversation around him dies and Arthur asks for Lucas’s opinion on something that he wills his brain to cooperate with his body, letting the thoughts already present inside it to somewhat wither away. It works for a while; Lucas is able to formulate a half-assed reply which Arthur considers sensible enough to not deem a follow up question.

Lucas relaxes, turning his head away and letting his eyes wander around the café. They linger on the multitude of bodies coloring his vision; a person sat by the window, their nose buried in the folds of a tattered book, a person sat to his left, the sight of their painted nails making Lucas insanely envious because when he paints his, his fingers look like that of a troll.

He shakes his head, eyes trailing a body carrying a bag double of their size. They move past, landing on a figure in the corner of the room, his eyes roaming about. His past has prepared him for the initial reaction which about takes a hold of the body and compels him to duck his head, hide, disappear.

But if the events of the past week are anything to go by, he stops when Eliott catches his eyes from across the room; his tall frame and hideous (for Lucas) smile taking Lucas aback with how natural it looks. His heart jumps ahead from his brain for a second, and in that he finds his lips curving upwards – just a bit warmly. It’s then his brain catches up, and it’s then Lucas is forced to drop his head down, the heat from his stupid actions sticking to his cheeks in the most uncomfortable yet welcoming way.

He doesn’t look back up, but he does turn his eyes to where the boys are sitting. He finds them immersed in their own world, and he finds himself chasing the path covered by his eyes earlier before. But to his absolute happiness (or lack thereof), Lucas doesn’t find Eliott there.

And Lucas doesn’t know it, but the very first seed of his untimely demise is sown in the ground at that very second; a tiny outgrowth of something feather-light and bright catching the place his heart has decided to beat out of.

*

Days pass slower than Lucas would have liked them to. They drag Lucas through a mountain of mud and pain; make the insides of his body churn with exhaustion; till the only option that’s left for him is to lie on his bed for hours and listen to Yann waxing senseless poetry about Chloe in the way you’d expect a sixth grader to describe their crush. Hell, even a sixth grader would know better than to describe the way their crush’s eyelashes kiss the skin beneath their eyes; the way their smile blooms on their lips; the fucking way their fingertips leave a trail of fire on –

Anyways. The point is, Lucas has been listening to Yann painting a much overrated picture of Chloe in Lucas’s mind when he’s struggling to catch sleep. It’s either him or Basile’s exaggerated particulars about his dates with Daphne in their group chat.

Sometimes Lucas listens to the point where Yann falls asleep, the tiredness of the day catching up to him. Other times, Lucas places a pillow over his head and then Yann’s filtered out voice does billions to lull him to sleep, only to wake up three hours after with a drained body but energetic brain ready to map out imaginary constellations on the underside of Yann’s bed. Often when he has nothing to direct his anger towards, Lucas regrets taking off Yann’s letter glued there when it had started to wither way.

So then his mind find various holes to loop him in; a chain of various misfortunes on his part for him to walk through one by one. They begin a series of torment which Lucas walks through very slowly, as if to savor each memory which he relives, starting from the damned after-party at the start of the year shit went down at and ending at the devil going by the name of Cupid8776 who’s sworn not to let Lucas live a minute of his life without feeling like a weight is hanging over his head ready to drop at any minute.

Which is his life right now. To say the least.

(He received an email from his cupid not too long ago, asking about how his life with his match watch going. Lucas suspected it had less to do with Cupid8776’s genuine curiosity regarding the state of things in Lucas’s life and more to do with finding out how much miserable Lucas really is after the fucking match.

And to answer you, Cupid8776, Lucas is doing pretty fine, thank you very much.)

And the way Lucas’s stomach churns when the statement formulates in his brain and how far off it actually is from the truth doesn’t matter when he keeps convincing himself (and others) of the direction his life is going right now is all smooth and none the bit in the form of huge potholes and bumps he keeps intentionally driving over.

And despite of the way it brings acid to his Lucas’s throat when he looks into Yann’s eyes when he asks about it, the small and innocent _Lucas do you need some help?_ when he’s sat on the desk contemplating his life over between one existential crisis and another assignment, ready to purchase a ticket for Timbuktu with what little money he has, Lucas still answers, _I’m fine Yann. Thank you._

Because he himself doesn’t know how one thing, the cupid, the letter – albeit filled with dicks – would cause him to land in such a mess, with the biggest dick of all. He himself doesn’t know the answer – what’s he supposed to do now. How can he explain this to someone else, someone other than his brain; someone Lucas is sure would cause his brain turn to mush and his senses to wither.

And don’t get him started on telling it all to Eliott. Hell, how would he even tell him all this. He cannot go up to him and be all like _Hey, Eliott. Do you know you’re a dick? And that I hate you? Anyways, that stupid Cupid8776 has decided that you’re the perfect match for me. And that equates us getting together. But you’re a dick. And I hate you. So this can’t work. Because you’re a d-_

Yeah, no. Lucas is sure he would hear something along the lines of _I don’t want anything to do with you Lucas_ or something like _Haha, that’s funny Lucas. Have you seen yourself?_ or definitely, completely a flat out laugh in his face, the kind that makes Eliott’s eyes turn into those little crescents Lucas often leaves on his wrists when he closes his hands too tight. The ones which makes crinkles form underneath them, sheltered by his obnoxious laugh and definitely ugly face all scrunching up.

Yeah, that would hurt more.

So Lucas does what he knows best. In the night, he stays up. He goes over the misfortunes his life has decided to throw at him in his head. In the morning when he wakes up from an hour or two of sleep, he struggles to get through his day. In Mika’s store, he avoids Eliott like a plague but he still manages to find him like a persistent bee around a sweet condiment, making his life a constant misery.

And when **cupidint.com** opens yet another round of applications to humiliate him further, Yann’s face peeks at him from the covers nestled over his head.

_You’re sure about it, Lucas? It doesn’t hurt to try one more time._

Lucas rolls the option in his head. He could try, right? What are the odds of him getting a response in return, the cupid’s imaginary snarly tone in Lucas’s head. His match and him both would need to file for the cancellation of their match before sending in requests for their new matches to be made.

Except, Lucas is a coward. And an idiot. And definitely without the knowledge of who Eliott’s match is. Or if it even exists. So.

_I’m sure, Yann. Besides I think I have enough of cupid and matchmaking for my lifetime._

Yann doesn’t question. And that night, his brain also doesn’t.

*

Things have been in a weird sort of calm lately after Lucas’s much belated decision to put the stuff concerning cupid and his match to the burner in his brain. It’s dumb, if you ask him, to be held up on something so miniscule; something which just aids his anxiety and does nothing good for him. It’s so so dumb, to think about something which won’t even matter in the long run if Lucas plays his cards right - that means cornering Eliott to send in his letter (if Celine’s right about him not having a match yet) and rejoicing when he matches with someone other than Lucas. Because….because there’s no way he could match with Lucas, right?

But that doesn’t matter anymore. Lucas isn’t thinking about all that stuff. He has much better things to do right now. Like this huge accounts book Mika handed him to sort through after Celine bailed on account of terrible pain in stomach and upper back. She has been sort of unhinged from reality when all of her attempts to make the girl from the ice-cream parlor notice her by hanging around the front of the store have remained in vain. Lucas has countless times tried to push her, but she doesn’t even budge from that one spot by the door where she claims the girl has a perfect view of her. So that’s completely on her.

(And besides, she’s been kind of mad when she got to know about Gigi Hadid mothering Zayn Malik’s child. And there, Lucas really can’t blame her.)

He spends an excruciating amount of time to go through their day’s sales, and prepares the closing entries. He knows a bit about accounting, having Celine drill him for times exactly like this. It isn’t his forte, but he’s been doing better than the time he started working here.

Which reminds him….

He leaves his station at the front desk and starts making his way to the back where he knows Eliott would be. After that little, sort of disguised white flag from Eliott in the form of the chocolate bar weeks ago, things have reached to a weird unspoken truce between them. Eliott and Lucas both – Lucas more than Eliott – now try to stay out of each other’s ways. Which Lucas believes. He effectively tries to avoid Eliott as much as he can, and he’s sure Eliott is doing the same when there’s no sign of him digging up a hole for Lucas to fall in.

Lucas rounds a rack, his ears picking up the sound of a funky tune softly playing from somewhere. Lucas increases his speed and comes to a stop when he spots Eliott, someone who shares a ninety percent part with the reasons of his trouble. He’s sitting on the floor with his back towards Lucas, a mess of black shirt and wild hair and strewn DVDs surrounding him. There’s something coming from the player Lucas went to hell to get, and, consequently, Eliott went alongside him to oppose.

Lucas trains his ears on the music, and Eliott’s low hums singing along to it.

_That man's a snitch and unpredictable  
He's got no conscience, he got none, none, none, none  
All I know, should've let go, but no_

Something lifts inside Lucas’s chest as he closes in on Eliott, who’s too busy to notice Lucas. If he remembers correctly, this is the same person who called it _tasteless_ when Lucas would play music from his pop obsessions on the same player. He’s been the one to constantly degrade Lucas’s musical choices, giving him the notion that Eliott was this sort of posh pretentious fuck listening only to old irrelevant music. (Not that Lucas has something against it. It’s just – Eliott made it very hard to enjoy what he loves by constantly being a fucking music geek criticizing the kind of music Lucas would play. And Lucas has no idea about the genre he listens to, but he guessed as much that he was sort of a classical guy.)

So now to have him singing along to – and actually enjoying, if those slight headbuts are anything to go by – the same singer and song Eliott called _bland_ is a big fucking deal to Lucas.

“This looks like a nice little party is going on here.”

And though Lucas has just admitted to staying out of Eliott’s way. But he can’t help but feel immense amount of pleasure at the way with which Eliott startles at the sound of his voice and almost knocks his head against the shelf behind him. Yes, he thinks, have a taste of your own medicine.

Lucas sees his shoulders tensing through the material of his black t-shirt, sees the way Eliott seems to still for a moment. Lucas isn’t proud of his choices, but for once he’s happy that he got Eliott to be like this.

Eliott turns his neck to the side, probably plotting Lucas’s death from his peripheral vision. Britney croons softly in the background as he turns fully towards Lucas. Lucas smiles as sweetly as he can as he meets Eliott’s murderous gaze.

“If I knew you also love listening to Britney I would have played more of her songs. But some people really thought her music is bland, so.”

Lucas bits his bottom lip in order to conceal the smile resulting from the absolutely constipated look on Eliott’s face. His eyes narrow, and he shakes his head before he turns his back to Lucas again.

“It grows on you, I guess.” He shrugs, gathering some stuff before standing up. It has occurred to Lucas several times before about the difference in their heights, but now, in this vicinity, it leaves a messy print on him mind when he starts to find it h-

Eliott turns on his heels, his face bright. Uh uh. “But don’t tell me you were stalking me, Lucas. That really doesn’t paint a good picture.”

Lucas scoffs, burying his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “In your dreams, Demaury.” Eliott gives him on bright smile, his face scrunching up, before he walks past Lucas with his stuff. Lucas catches a whiff of orange and cigarette smoke. He has a second to get his mind back on track, before he’s sprinting behind Eliott, trying to match his gigantic strides with his tiny legs.

“Hey, Mika wants stats on that movie thingy.” He calls when he’s walking beside Eliott.

“Movie thingy?” Eliott says, stopping for a bit to give Lucas his judging eyes, “That’s very eloquent of you.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. Mika explained to him last week what that movie thingy was. It’s not Lucas’s fault he was focusing on other… _distracting_ things standing in the corner of the store to properly listen to him. 

“Shut up,” Lucas bites back, falling into step with Eliott, “And don’t you try to sidetrack me from the important thing here. So, details.”

The reach the front desk, and Eliott turns to him, furrowing his brows. “What details?”

“About why were you listening to Britney in the first place. Did someone break your icy cold heart in two?”

Eliott supports a sour look on his face. Lucas has never seen him this bothered before. And sue him if he isn’t going to hold onto it for as long as he can.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eliott says as he walks behind the counter, taking out an important looking folder from one of the drawers.

“Eliott,” Lucas drawls out, sighing when Eliott ignores him. Okay, this is new. “C’mon, there’s no need to get embarrassed about enjoying that kind of music.”

Eliott glares at Lucas, the pen in a metal grip in his hand. Lucas turns a sheepish grin in.

“I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but no one’s breaking my perfectly normal heart, if that’s what this is about.”

“Right,” Lucas nods his head, “You’d rather Britney Spears your heart in two,”

There’s a moment where Eliott freezes. Then he’s shaking his head, a delightful smile crossing over his lips. Lucas doesn’t reel in the face that he just made him smile. No. “I- I’m just going to pretend you didn’t say that.” Eliott chuckles, his hands smoothing the paper he’s working on.

Lucas smiles. There’s a dip in his stomach. “It was that terrible, huh?”

Eliott looks at him. There’s a little amount of light peeking in through the window above his head. It douses him in mixtures of green and blue like his eyes and yellow like the warmth Lucas feels in his chest.

“It was,” Eliott’s voice is soft, “But for you I’m going to pretend it wasn’t.”

Two things change that moment. One, Lucas realizes Eliott isn’t a dick. Maybe half of one, but not completely. The other, and the more groundbreaking one, is how Lucas is made aware of the frantic beating of his heart. One that misses a beat and makes the back of his neck feel like it’s on fire.

*

The thing about living with your crush-turned-best-friend is, nothing remains swept under the metaphorical rug that they have for long. It’s probably because of the distressing things they both went through together, including but not limited to Yann getting so drunk he falls from his bunk onto the floor and keeps sleeping as if nothing happened; Lucas coming out to him along with an embarrassing confession of the untimely crush he has on him; Yann listening through the whole thing, admitting he’s straight (like Lucas didn’t know already) and would have probably gone for Lucas in a parallel universe where he wasn’t as stupid as he is now.

(The two hugged it out afterwards, drunken giggles dying into the night as Yann proceeded to tease him about his gay awakening.)

So yeah. Living with Yann has caused Lucas to run out of every inch of surface he could hide behind when the slightest inconvenience strikes his life. Sometimes, he’s able to push back his problems and pretend everything is okay. Sometimes, he sees Yann doing it too. And often, when it gets too much, there’s an intervention; a much delayed talk, a shared joint getting passed, and it becomes okay for a while.

So Lucas should have known it was coming, when he walks into the room with Yann towering over something on the study table, and the place smelling strongly of burnt honey and a whiff of juniper wafting in the air.

“What are you doing?” Lucas asks, announcing his presence to a totally unsuspecting Yann who jumps in his spot before whipping towards Lucas. What’s up with him startling people these days huh?

“Jesus, Lucas! Could have given a warning, no?”

Lucas grins, taking off his shoes as he walks up to Yann, who’s lighting a _candle_?

“That wouldn’t have been funny, sorry.” He comes to stand beside him. There’s a burning candle placed alongside Lucas’s stuff, and there’s another which Yann is struggling to light because of the small length of its thread.

“What are those for?” He asks again as he’s hit with a faint scent of juniper. Yann turns around and faces him with a smile, his eyes too bright for Lucas to decipher why.

“I went for a bit of shopping today,” he says, walking backwards to sit over Lucas’s bed, “And this really nice lady at this old store promised me these scented candles would help with relaxing and sleeping so I got some to light.”

Oh.

Lucas feels something crawling from the collar of his t-shirt and spreading over his neck, travelling to the space where the inside of his cheeks are being chewed under his teeth. He clears his throat awkwardly, facing away from Yann and looking around their room which hasn’t felt as small as it does right at this moment.

“Lucas…..”

Lucas hears him heave a sigh, before there’s sound of hands scratching over some rough material probably Yann’s jeans, which tells him he’s as nervous as him. Lucas takes a breath in, calls for his heart to calm down and brain to fire a signal strong enough to focus on the right thing.

He succeeds, barely.

“I just want you to know that if you thought I wouldn’t be able to notice you’re barely sleeping at night or restlessly destroying yourself during the day. That I wouldn’t be able to tell something’s eating you up from inside, then you’re wrong. I do, Lucas. And I’m waiting for you to realize that.”

Something in his chest feels heavy as he turns towards Yann his lip pulled between his teeth and a thin sheen falling over his eyes. Lucas’s attempt to smile goes down the drain when he can’t will the muscle in his face to do so. It’s just….Lucas has barely made sense to himself about what’s going on. How the hell he is supposed to tell Yann is beyond him.

“Yann,” he takes a tentative step forward, falling into a stride when Yann pats the space next to him his expressions inviting. Lucas sits down to next him, shoulders heavy and stomach equally so. “I do want to tell you. It’s – fuck – I don’t know what’s happening. I’m so tired. And confused. I can barely sleep and – and –“

“Hey,” Yann soothes, placing a hand over Lucas’s shoulder. He hasn’t realized that his breathing has picked up till Yann coaxes him to breathe slower, his calm demeanor an exact opposite of Lucas. “Breathe with me, Lucas.”

Lucas tries to slow his heart down. The stress from the last couple of weeks he hadn’t let get a hold of himself now feeling like pouring from a dam he’d left to close the gate to. It sits heavily over him, refusing to let go, even when Yann circles his thumb over his shoulders in an attempt to call him.

“Sometimes I feel like a mother keeping her rogue children in line with you Lucas.” Yann begins in a bleak attempt to lighten the mood.

“Well, my mother does think you’re the most sensible one out of all four of us,” Lucas’s smile is weak, but it’s there. Yann takes a look over his face.

“I’m here if you want to talk, alright? Today, tomorrow; doesn’t matter. I’d listen to anything you might have to tell me.”

“If I do that you’re going to call me stupid.” Lucas sighs, noticing how soon Yann goes from being concerned to outright offended.

“I have never called you stupid…..Or maybe I _have_ , a couple hundred times before. But you totally deserved all of that, so.” He grins, and Lucas has to roll his eyes as a smile sneaks its way onto his lips.

“Anyways,” Lucas starts, “You’re right; I do have trouble sleeping. And I feel like mostly the reason has to do with the stress from uni classes and - yeah. I was able to manage a few hours nap here and there when I was free but –“

Lucas breaks off, taking a breath in. Yann gives him time as he sits focusing on Lucas.

“-but something happened. I – uh – remember when I said I didn’t send in a letter that one time you asked me? And then several other times after that? Well, I might have been lying.”

Yann’s eyes widen a little and Lucas watches a look of pure confusion falls on his face. “What? You’ve been sending letters this whole time?”

“No, fuck. _No_.” Lucas shakes his head. He isn’t being mean or anything and he’s said this to Yann’s face before so he’ll say it again: Yann can really be the densest person he knows. Seriously, how hard is it to not connect the dots when he literally has everything out in the open?!

“Then what do you mean?”

Lucas steels himself closes his eyes, and with one final breath the words come out. “I got matched.”

“ _You got what?_!” Yann’s voice is higher than a billion fucking octaves. Lucas winces, and risks a glance at Yann’s incredulous expression. He looks a minute short of exploding as his mouth stays open.

“Close your fucking mouth, Yann. That’s not the whole thing-“

_“There’s more?!”_

Lucas sighs, shaking his head. This was a bad, bad idea. He thought maybe talking to Yann would help him make sense of a few things himself but looking back at it now he’s regretting ever opening his mouth.

“Yes, so now please shut the fuck up and let me talk.”

Yann closes his mouth, face still not losing its look of disbelief. Lucas focuses his eyes on the spot behind Yann’s head. He doesn’t want any part of what will surely cross his face as Lucas would deliver the final blow.

“My match – you know who the _fucking_ Cupid8776 matched me with? Eliott. Eliott fucking Demaury.”

There’s a beat of silence too deafening for Lucas as he stays looking over Yann’s head. He’s pretty sure Yann has stopped breathing and is probably on the way of falling to the ground due to lack of oxygen, but Lucas isn’t ready to meet his eyes.

“Did I – did I hear _that_ right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you really say you matched with Eliott Demaury?”

“Yes.”

“The Eliott you’re sworn to hate for the rest of your life? The Eliott you can’t stand the sight of? The Eliott who get apeshit crazy about whenever he’s mentioned? The Eliott you’d rather ki-“

“Would you shut up? Jesus fuck! I knew it was a bad idea telling you.” Lucas huffs out, shuffling his body to turn away from Yann. He just about turns an inch, before Yann’s placing a hand on his shoulder before he can move much.

“Okay okay I’m sorry, Lucas.” Yann looks apologetic, and something of a weight falls right over Lucas’s shoulder. “I’m just – I don’t know what I was expecting for you to tell me but this - god I would have never expected for that to happen to you!”

“You and me, both,” Lucas somewhat swallows the words down, somewhat clears his throat so it won’t get clogged up with everything he’s feeling right now. He shakes his head in hopes of clearing the thoughts stuck inside it, and when he turns to Yann, there’s something flashing over his face which he can’t decipher.

“And how are you dealing with all of this?” Yann asks his voice soft and calm. Lucas figures it’s because he wants to give him space to empty his head in. A humorless chuckles forces its way out of his lips, and Lucas breaks.

“I’m tired Yann,” Lucas admits. His eyes fall over his fingernails bitten to the stub; he sees how they shake a little when he thinks too much about it. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to think. My brain is this dump of useless shit which keeps making me feel like I’m standing on an unbalanced stool ready to topple over any moment.” Lucas cringes as an involuntary shiver passes down the entire length of his spine at the irony of his own statement. Yann doesn’t seem to notice his brief stint of silence a bit.

“And then there’s Eliott,” The laugh he forces is every bit lacking any conviction, “I see him and I- I don’t know if he’s himself matched or not. Celine tells me he hasn’t, but- But I’m scared shitless to talk to him. And fuck – I’m making it seem like we’re on talking basis, but I’ve had like two decent conversations with him. And I’m afraid if I tell him he’s never going to let me live it down.”

There’s silence for a couple of moments. Lucas feels the lightness over his chest, feels the weight deflating from over his shoulders. It feels good to have finally let this out to someone he knows he can trust.

“But do you know that?” Yann asks. Lucas follows it with a confused ‘huh’. Yann shakes his head, rubbing a hand over Lucas’s shoulder, “Do you know if Eliott is going to act like that? Best case scenario, he’d tell you he doesn’t want to be your match, and you both can leave it behind you after submitting the application for the cancellation. Worst case, he’s actually the dick you make him out to be. But you _don’t_ know that.”

And Lucas wants to ask. How have Yann and the others been believing _that_ all this time when he’s only just made sense of that a couple days before. What was it that Lucas failed to see but the others didn’t. What was it that made Eliott act like that when they first met. What was….

Lucas shakes his head, focusing on Yann who’s grown weirdly silent. Lucas waits for more of him to knock sense into his head but it doesn’t come.

“I still don’t know what I should do. Sometimes I wish it were as easy as it was with Basile and Daphne. I mean, who would have imagined.” Lucas pouts, looking up at Yann like he’s the solution to his every problem. (Lucas wouldn’t have done that, if the deity making him had considered putting the same amount of _functional_ braincells inside him too.)

Yann laughs, bright and carefree. Lucas sends a prayer above.

“That’s all you, man.” Yann concludes, patting Lucas’s shoulder, “I still don’t know where you stand with Eliott, and I hope for your sake that you now.”

Lucas shrugs, smiling up at Yann as he gets up from his bed, “Well, he smiled at me today?”

“But he wouldn’t smile at you before?”

“ _No_." Lucas scoffs. How could Yann assume such an outrageous thing? "Before it was used to be this glowering, murderous glare which would really piss me off. So I would do stuff which would really earn me that, you know?”

Yann grimaces, “You’re something else, Lucas. I need to applaud poor Eliott’s patience who’s been putting up with you for this long.”

And he doesn’t know anything about _poor_ _Eliott_. Hell, Lucas should be the one given credit for he _HAS_ to put up with Eliott’s ass for quite this long. Yann doesn’t know shit.

Lucas purses his lips, turning to his bed for another sleepless venture into the void. Yann peers at him from above.

“Your candles are shit,” Lucas retaliates, dodging as Yann hurls a paper ball aimed for his head. It lands safely next to his head.

“Yeah yeah. You got me, Lallemant.” Yann laughs. Lucas sends him a squinty-eyed smile as he walks towards the door. He figures he possibly has to meet Chloe. “It probably doesn’t make any difference, but try not to think too much, alright? Let your brain have a little rest.”

And it feels like the millionth time when Yann says those words. It also feels like the millionth time when Lucas answers with an ‘I really can’t promise’. Yann’s breath is the millionth one Lucas has seen him exhale in the span of the last couple of minutes. Yann doesn’t say much, but Lucas sees al the words printed on his face in a very obvious way.

It might be the millionth time Lucas turns on his side and closes his eyes. But for the first time, his chest heaves a calm breath, like there isn’t an ocean of turbulent waves raging inside it, and sends him off to an island of black days and warm nights, effervescent with green all around.

*

Lucas’s life gets an instant whir of rush as the semester approaches to its end. When once he used to have time to mingle around with his friends on a regularly basis, now he barely catches sight of them after class. Well, except for Yann, of course, and that’s on days he isn’t going to the _library_ to study. Like Lucas doesn’t know what that’s code for.

And it’s funny, how he still has yet to meet the person who’s cultivated such a big part of his best friend’s life that Lucas always catches him either in the middle of smiling for no sensible reason or he’s beginning to form a smile which Lucas finds downright creepy and all the more lovesick.

But with a month to go for the finals and Lucas’s life in complete shambles, he doesn’t find time to focus on anything outside. Which might call for a good thing except the time he spends searching for purchase in his own life, Arthur somehow becomes the organizer of a Star Wars convention happening somewhere in the city; Basile miraculously gets their philosophy TA to give him a week long extension on their assignment (when previously he wouldn’t even budge when Lucas literally bribed him with his kidney); Yann comes to the dorm room with the collar of his previously pristine blue shirt stained with a color definitely belonging to a lipstick and a bruise on his neck definitely belonging to the sexy kind.

And – and at work, there’s a Styrofoam cup waiting for him with a messy, very familiar scrawl of his name when he shows up after a tough day of classes.

So.

Lucas would like to say he isn’t thinking about anything except for his life right now. But when things literally barge though the walls he keeps putting around him, he has no choice except to do exactly _that_. But there’s a change, you see. Talking with Yann and unloading some of what’s been weighing on him has now brought him a new sense of calm, he guesses. Either it’s just the added stress cancelling out the previous one or just Yann not making it a big deal like Lucas thought he would – and like how Lucas has been doing it – that’s making him feel at ease with himself. With the whole deal with the match. With Cupid8776.

With Eliott.

So when he isn’t thinking about that, he’s talking with his mother, filling her on about his life, listening to the progress she’s making through Willow’s entirely hopeful words. He’s been doing better in classes; coming closer to the grades Basile gets in their classes (but still standing so far away). He’s been working on himself, and after what feels like months of hearing Yann burning is ears with _Chloe this_ and _Chloe that_ , actually going out to meet her for the first time.

(And that’s a story he would like to think about, you see. Outing himself as the bearer of having a crush on Yann, thinking surely he would have told her that. But no. Yann’s mother hen features had kicked in, and he, in fact, had consciously omitted that detail for Lucas’s sake. But it turns out, Chloe had deemed that instance to officially proclaim Lucas as one of her own. Whatever that meant.)

And then there comes a time when he’s in the store, tired from hanging around all day, watching Celine making googly eyes at the girl literally meters away. There’s an instance when he tells her _You won’t get anywhere with that_ and there’s an instance when she bites back _Like you know anything about_ pursuing _someone._

And Lucas shuts up. And he sees the girl walk over the street, enter their little store. And then Celine literally shoos him away from the counter, putting on a smile he hasn’t seen on her before. He doesn’t leave, hides behind a shelf where he has a clear view of how Celine tells her an absolutely horrendous pick up line which he’s sure goes over the girl’s head as he smothers his laugh behind his hand.

(And he feels bad. But whatever.)

And the girl calls Celine cute. But she doesn’t die like Lucas suspects her to. Somewhere between that, he’s joined by Eliott who sneaks up behind him and then chides him for eavesdropping. Lucas shushes him with a wave of his hand, and Eliott mutters words of encouragement for Celine as she effectively rings the girl up for something he doesn’t know she’s bought.

Later he learns the girl has left Celine her number. Anais, Lucas learns after Eliott breaks down the news to him in so many giggles Lucas has to take a moment to stop himself. He fails, miserably, joining in on Eliott’s smiles as he makes his way to slander Celine to tell him all the details. But she’s floating above the clouds to pay him any attention.

And that’s when things take a turn so sharp Lucas actually loses the control of the car. He’s thrown out on the curb, left to find shelter for himself, all the while learning to balance his foot as Eliott joins in on his walk around the store.

But that’s just not it. Things change so much that when once Lucas would try his best to avoid Eliott at all costs, now he would go out of his way to actively seek him out. When once Eliott would blatantly ignore Lucas when asking if Celine wanted something as he was going to the deli near their store, now he would bring something with him for Lucas without him asking to.

(And Lucas would eat the damned cheese and ham sandwich he doesn’t even like. But Eliott’s little smile would get him through it.)

And even though Lucas finds a bud of a friendship hidden somewhere under all the dust accumulated over time, Eliott would still do shit to annoy Lucas - like call him tardy for being late when he, in fact, would be perfectly _on_ time - and Lucas would still call him a dick and leave him those stick figures he draws so well, but they’d now laugh it off together.

And after that, there’d be a gaping hole in Lucas’s chest where his heart would have jumped out of onto the floor, beating with a rhythm Lucas would later find hard to keep up with.

*

It’s one of those days where Lucas would rather crawl in a hole and die after one too many tiring classes when he’s walking to the store, greeting Mika at the counter who’s sat typing away on the computer in front of him. There’s a few people mingling about, and if he trains his eyes hard enough, he can actually spot Celine standing off to one side typing away on her phone.

“You don’t look well, kitten.” Mika gives him a look he shrinks away from, “Tough day?”

Lucas sighs, “Something like that.”

Mika tuts low, sitting up from the chair and coming over to Lucas. “I’m sorry to hear that, kitten. There aren’t many people here today, so would you mind manning the counter for me?” Lucas nods, taking Mika’s place. “I’ll be looking over the shipment which arrived yesterday and –“ Mika stops, looking around the room. Lucas holds in his laughter when Mika’s voice telling Celine to “Get off the fucking phone” makes her jumps and two people to turn their head towards them.

She glares at Lucas before turning away, finding someone to help. Mika sighs, long and tired. “You’re stuck with her for now, Lucas. Eliott will be taking a couple days off so it’s just you two around here.”

Lucas furrows his brows, feeling something skin to worry coil inside him. He quickly shuts it down and feigns as much nonchalance he can when he asks, “Is everything okay with him?”

Mika dismisses the subject with a wave of his hand, “Yeah he’s just unwell. A small fever; nothing big. He’ll be back soon, so.” He turns to leave but stops, “I’ll be around the back if you need anything.”

With Mika’s fading footsteps, Lucas slumps in his chair and begins ringing people out as they come to him with their purchases. His mind keeps straying, moving from Eliott and coming to rest at _Eliott_. It’s not like he’s worried (no) and it’s not like he can send him a message wishing him best (also no). Their talks might have been friendlier than before, but they weren’t just on that lever yet.

So as the needle of his mind keeps getting stuck at one place, Lucas busies himself in his work. Time seems to pass on slowly. The light from the window casts broken shadows onto the counter, and Lucas becomes doused in warm light as the sun makes its way to the front of the store.

Celine skips to him when there aren’t any people inside. Lucas regards her sudden interest for hanging around with him with suspicion.

“What’s gotten into you?” He asks, putting away the page he was mindlessly doodling on. Celine shrugs her shoulder, the creepy smile present on her face not sitting well with him.

“Nothing, Lucas. You just look so beautiful today. Well, you always do, but…”

Lucas narrows his eyes as it clicks. The unsolicited smiles, her out-of-the-blue compliments, just her weird behavior in general.

“No.”

Her face turns into an expression of confusion as she stares at Lucas. “What?”

“Whatever you need, my answer is no.”

She breaks then, coming behind the counter and widening her eyes in an attempt of getting Lucas to agree, “Luuucasss!” She starts, holding Lucas’s arm as he makes an attempt to leave and save what little resolve he has. “Please, listen to me. I really need your help. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

Lucas doesn’t budge, just focuses his eyes on the wall above Celine’s head. She stays put, her voice getting filtered out in Lucas’s ears. It’s when her voice fades, and when Lucas thinks she has stopped, that it happens.

“If you don’t agree I’ll tell Eliott about the thing.”

Lucas turns to her then. He has done several things in front of her, all lying on the downright humiliating side. “What thing?”

“The thing you asked me to do. About Eliott finding his match.”

Lucas feels the blood draining from his face. Something kicks in his stomach. That’s why you can’t ever trust her. “What do you want?” He grumbles, expression turned sour as Celine literally squeals and jumps on Lucas, her arms wrapping themselves around Lucas’s neck.

“I want you to cover my shift on Friday. I know it’s a day off for you, but you don’t mind, right? Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

She goes on, without waiting for Lucas to inform her how much he really minds. He was hoping for a quiet night in, but he really doesn’t want what Celine threatened him with to happen. He sighs, watching her blabber some shit his brain doesn’t catch. And then-

“I told her I’d be free on Friday, which was a lie until now. So. Anyways, Anais said there’s this cool place-“

A horrified expression takes over her features as she realizes what she let slip. Lucas turns to her, “Anais? You’re going out with Anais?”

“Ah, no – You heard wrong. I didn’t say anything, Lucas. Anyways, Friday. Bye.”

She runs away when a customer enters, leaving some words which go over Lucas’s head. Lucas laughs, shaking his head, and directing the customer towards the rock aisle.

Lucas sighs, slipping back on the chair as the person disappears behind the racks. There’s a beat of silence around the store, with the disappearance of Celine – and the absence of someone- making it harder for Lucas to ignore the thoughts circulating in his head. It’s now when he doesn’t have anyone alongside him that he understands how much he relies on these people to get through his day.

Which is odd, if you ask him.

(Because Eliott isn’t here, and Lucas is starting to wish he was.)

And it’s stupid of him, to wish the cause of his miseries for the past three months to be standing beside him. It’s stupid of him to worry. It’s stupid, stupid, stupid.

If Eliott were here, he would have done something which Lucas would have thought about for the rest of his day. It would have been something totally stupid, something like: People who prefer vanilla over chocolate are dumbasses, and that’s a fact. _Yeah you’re right_. Are you alright? _Yeah, why?_ Then why does your face look like that? _Like what?_ Like it’s physically hurting you to agree with me. _It’s not_. No? _No_. I don’t believe you. Don’t tell me you’re a vanilla guy? _I’m not. I really like chocolate._ Then prove it.

And the point hadn’t been how Lucas gave him his KitKat stored for special purposes, and how Celine later pointed out that Lucas never shared his chocolate before. But it was all about how Eliott took the bar from him and ate it, all the while pretending his insides weren’t crumbling as he chewed the chocolate down his throat.

(And that’s how Lucas found Eliott really hated chocolate, but just wanted to prove Lucas wrong.)

(He failed, obviously.)

And when Lucas thinks about it, he’s reminded of all the little things he has found about Eliott. The chocolate thing aside, Lucas found how he likes to doodle badgers and rodents inside his books when he hunted his pretentious book down for his own drawing purposes. He knows Eliott’s music taste sucks – _who the fuck calls Britney bland_ – and that Lucas’s bout of playing music around the store has immensely grown on him. He knows that Eliott knows all of Lucas’s ticks which puts him in a position of power above him.

But Lucas doesn’t care about that now.

He sighs, legs numbing and back aching from how he’s slouching on the chair he’s sat upon. A couple customers run by, he rings them out, and when all fails he turns to snooping mindlessly around Mika’s counter; opening this drawer and another.

It’s when he opens the last drawer that he sees an old book, cover torn and pages this close to falling apart. There are some holes around the edges, and there’s a messy scrawl of words on the front.

_Eliott D._

Lucas swallows, flipping to the first page. It is probable for this to be some of Eliott’s pretentious books, and it’s probable he may need it to study. Lucas looks it over, running his finger over the writing which has grown much familiar to him than he would have liked.

The sigh that passes his lips is not his own as he puts the tattered book inside his bag.

*

He is still alone, two days later.

He’s passed the previous days in a blur, mechanically going from his classes to the store, and then going to the dorm, revising for classes and waiting for sleep to hit him.

(And it would, if only for a couple hours.)

But Eliott’s still not here when Mika tells him to finish early, since he’s got something to do later. He isn’t thinking about how it’s been three whole days since he last saw him; he’d use to catch sight of him in uni campus, but he hasn’t been able to at all during the past two days. And he’s not worried (he’s not) but Basile told him yesterday he hasn’t been attending his art class either.

So.

He’s following after Mika, dragging his feet behind him as Mika babbles about some event he has to attend later – “- but I’m going to be late Lucas! Someone I’ve been wanting to be my match is going to be there and I really want to see them.”

Lucas laughs, “Then why don’t you leave now? I’ll close the store.”

“I would, but Eliott called me earlier. There are these movies he needs for his film project and I promised to get them to him today.”

And Lucas – he stops for a bit, catching up with whatever that was said after _Eliott_. And he has a countless things to ask. How’s he? Is he okay? Is he going to come back? But what leaves his mouth surprises him and Mika alike.

“I’ll take them to him, if you want,”

Mika regards him for a moment with suspicion. But he must find what he’s looking for when a smile breaks across his lips. He lands both of his hands on Lucas’s shoulders, eyes bright, “Really?”

“Yeah,” Lucas nods, “I have some of his stuff which I need to return. Might do that too.”

 _Some stuff_ being that book he came upon and doesn’t know if he even needs it or not.

“You’re a darling,” Mika says, turning to move towards the back room. “Come with me, I’ll give you the movies. You do know where he lives, right?”

Lucas, in fact, does not. But still, ten minutes later, he finds himself standing in front of an apartment complex, a block away from his dormitory building at the uni campus, with a couple of DVDs, a tattered book and, much to the detriment of his own sanity, a beverage he’s seen Eliott drinking around the store.

(But this one has a penis drawn next to Eliott’s name, a courtesy of Lucas’s brain overridden with anxiety.)

He moves inside when an old man is leaving, thankfully not wanting to worry about anyone buzzing him in. His stomach cramps when he locates the flat Mika specified to be Eliott’s on the second floor, and waits a good five minute with numbing legs before ringing the bell.

There’s a full formed speech inside his brain for when he’ll see Eliott, but it evaporates into thin air when the door opens and he finds someone other than Eliott standing on the other side of it.

He’s tall, with beautiful dark skin and extremely attractive face. He’s someone Lucas has seen in flashes before, particularly paired with Imane in the pictures he’s seen in her phone.

“Hi.” Lucas stammers as the back of his neck gets warm. He really doesn’t know why he’s nervous. The man looks at him, his expression unreadable. Lucas holds out the DVDs and the book sandwiched between them in front of him, and holds to himself the coffee he’s bought for Eliott. “Mika sent me along with these. They’re for Eliott.”

And with a statement which is part lie, part truth, Eliott’s (probable) flatmate takes the things from Lucas. When he looks up, there’s a question, “Thank you?”

“Lucas,” He answers, stepping from one foot to the other. “I’m Lucas.”

The person smiles, a new kind of light to his face, “Thank you, Lucas. I’m Idriss, Eliott’s friend.”

“I know,” Lucas blurts, before heat seeps in the tissue of his cheeks, “I mean- I know you’re Idriss. Imane has told me about you.”

Idriss doesn’t say anything, but his smile grows even warmer, if it’s possible. The coffee in Lucas’s hand grows a little colder, “Would you mind giving this to Eliott too?”

Idriss takes it from him, rotating the Styrofoam cup in his hand, “Did Mika send it too?”

“Ah- yeah.” Lucas purses his lips, his heart in his throat, hands too clammy.

“A..penis.” Idriss observes. “Nice.” He smirks. Lucas’s face grows uncomfortably warm. He averts his gaze, focusing on something on the door. “I’ll tell Eliott you stopped by.”

Lucas nods, chewing his lips, as he mutters a small goodbye. It isn’t after he’s out of the building that he releases the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

*

Friday comes much too soon for his liking. Yann scores himself a date, and tells Lucas in clear terms that he won’t be back tonight. Lucas wishes him with a condom aimed for his head which he catches perfectly and slips inside in his pocket.

He’s late to reach his shift, but when he does, Mika appears too happy to tell him off. Instead, he waves his apology off with his hand, and tells him to see if any customer needs his help.

It’s when he makes his way to the back, mind elsewhere, body on earth. He isn’t expecting to see anyone, so it comes with a surprise when he’s colliding face first into a clothed (what he assumes) chest, hands landing on the tough muscles for support.

And it’s when he gets an instant rush of oranges and sweets that he jumps back, his face warm all of a sudden.

“Hey,” the person supplies, and Lucas looks up. There’s a window behind Eliott, the light of which creates a halo of golden around the untamed hair on his head. There are purple circles underneath his eyes when he smiles, and his skin looks too pale for Lucas’s liking.

And even though he still looks like he should be resting, Lucas’s heart manages to skip a step.

“Hi,” Lucas breathes, his hands clasping over his chest. Eliott’s eyes are bright, his shoulders hang low but he still smiles as if Lucas has narrated the entire discography of his favorite artist.

“How are you?” Lucas asks, and because it sounded too eager for his own ears, retraces, “Mika told me you had a fever.”

Eliott pulls his lips between his teeth. There’s something falling over his face as his smile dulls, before he picks it up like light.

“Just peachy,” He shrugs, adding a brief chuckle afterwards. Lucas doesn’t help his smile, feels his heart lift up and step falter when he starts to leave.

“I’m glad then.” He says, rubbing his hands together. They’re cold, and clammy. And it doesn’t make a bit of sense to him. “See you around?”

Eliott nods, and Lucas starts his walk to the back. If there’s an added bounce to his step which wasn’t there before, then it’s no one’s business.

Mika comes looking for him afterwards.

“You remember the person I told you about? The one at the event I wanted to be my match?”

Lucas nods.

“Well, he’s coming to pick me up now. There’s this thing again with – uh. You understand right?”

Lucas nods again, even though he doesn’t.

“I-uh. I need to leave. Like right now. Would you and Eliott be okay taking over?”

And as it clicks, Lucas has to take a minute for himself. That’s three of the people he knows getting some action on the _same day_. It’s not even funny.

“I don’t mind.” Lucas says, and plants the final seed of his demise.

*

With fifteen minutes to closing time, Lucas finds himself with a broom, wiping the floor of any dust he could find. Eliott’s been at the front for the past hour, insisting that he’d be the one to man the counter. And though Lucas believed he looked too tired to do that, he hadn’t been able to stop him.

But there wasn’t any customer now. His own body was a breath away from shutting down. He didn’t know about Eliott, but he was ready to call it a day.

He starts making his way to the front, hoping to get Eliott to close the store early. He hasn’t seen Eliott since he went for the counter, and seeing him after all these time is already doing confusing things to his mind.

He shakes his head, clearing the mess blocking the normal functioning of his single braincell. His phone vibrates in his pocket, and he takes it out.

Everything inside him falls out of him onto the floor when he reads the message.

He feels like the phone might crack with the force he’s holding it with. Something coils inside his stomach, bile rises to his throat. His heart starts beating like a reverberating drum the sound of which he feels inside his ears.

No no no no no. This is NOT happening.

It takes a moment for the anxiety running through his veins to turn into anger. Just – Who the fuck he thinks he is for coming into Lucas’s life like that. Who the fuck does he take Lucas to be if he’s thinking he’d meet him after the hell he put him and his mother through. Who the fuck does he think himself to be for springing up in his life – when he has no need for him – after leaving them standing on the curb without as much as a look back?

Lucas hates him. He hates that asshole so much it’s blinding. He might have a fifty percent part in bringing Lucas into this world, but that’s it. And screw him for thinking if he can expect to meet Lucas for dinner.

As if Lucas would want anything to do with him.

He runs, going for the counter. Maybe if he can get Eliott to stay behind with him, the asshole would see he’s not alone and would leave without Lucas having to put up a fight. He could try refusing or running back to his dorm now, but that would end up in him reaching his mother (happened before) and Lucas doesn’t want her to get caught up in a mess rising from his own choices, especially when she’s been through so much already.

So with Eliott as his last resort, he finds him putting away stuff at the counter. Lucas rushed to him frantically, and gets a confused look in return.

“Hey, is everything okay?”

Eliott looks tired, but that’s the last thing on Lucas’s mind as he wets his lips, his stomach in knots. “Yeah. I – Do you remember how I got you out of that thing?”

Eliott’s brow furrows, “I’m – what? What are you talking about?”

“I really need your help,” Lucas starts, hoping to convey the fire burning inside him through the pleading look he sends his way, “There’s someone coming to meet me. And I really don’t have the emotional or physical capacity to meet him now, nor I can refuse him because then – “ Lucas shakes his head, closing his eyes as he focuses on keeping his breathing even, “And I want you to stay because he might see that I’m not alone and would leave.”

It’s selfish, what he’s asking of Eliott. But he really needs his help now. More than ever.

Eliott pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. His jacket is hanging over one of his shoulder, which seem to be sagging for some reason.

“Lucas,” he starts, eyes searching his, “I really can’t stay. I’m meeting some friends I’ve been bailing out on and I promised them I would come.”

The nervousness mixed with the rage inside him comes pouring out at that moment, "I have told you to get lost at least seventy times before. And you’re choosing to leave me when I’m literally begging you to stay. Why the fucking hell Eliott?”

Eliott winces, a small uncomfortable smile playing at his lips, “You know, like one great man once said ‘You can’t have it all’.”

 _What the fuck?_ Lucas snaps, stomach turning over in anger and something he can’t pinpoint. “Jesus fucking Christ Eliott! Can’t you see that I’m in need here? You-“ he chokes, throat closing in on itself.

“Lucas..” He hears, but he shakes his head, eyes closed from the fear of the worst happening. “ _Lucas_ ,” Eliott begins again, this time more firmly, “I’m – I really can’t deal with you right now. I’ve- I’ve got to go.”

Lucas shakes his head. Whatever. Let Eliott leave. It’s not like he cares about him. “Yeah I know you can’t deal me with. It’s been like that from the start.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Lucas begins, “You’ve always hated me, haven’t you? You’ve always made me feel like shit. Like I – like I was nothing. You’ve always been a dick to me. A fucking pretentious asshole on this high horse, but you don’t give a shit, do you? You don’t care about anything, and you know what–“

It’s as he’s opening his mouth – Fuck you Eliott on the tip of his tongue – that he pauses. Eliott looks sad. Pained. Hurt. Lucas feels the words coiling in his mouth, burning his tongue. He feels as if the sudden force of a tide has knocked the breath out of his lungs. He’s never questioned his choices around Eliott. But still he doesn’t know why it feels like he can’t speak. Why there are thorns instead of cells in his throat. Why the words familiar as if they’re a part of him now suddenly feel so foreign. So awful. And as the tail end of the tide sweeps over him, he’s drenched with the realization: he cares.

Lucas stops, breathing irregular as he turns his head to the side. “Just – just go, Eliott. I’m sure you’re dying to.”

And he does. Eliott leaves. Picking up his belongings and turning, without even a backward glance, the door swinging behind him. Lucas turns around and releases a sigh, one which is a reflection of his energy and exhaustion. But he doesn’t let himself fall yet.

There’s a noise. Breaks skidding to a halt. Lucas prepares himself, pulling up a wall made of iron and cementing all of him together. The door shakes, and in comes a gush of air and –

Lucas steels himself.

“Hello son.”

Paul looks the same as the last time Lucas saw him. His hair is black. There isn’t a strand out of place. His mouth is curved in a smile which Lucas wants to slap off.

“Don’t call me that.” Lucas’s voice doesn’t convey what he’s feeling since Paul smiles. Lucas feels the disgust in his bones when Paul takes a step closer.

“Don’t be like that, Lucas. I’m your father after all.”

 _You’re not_. Lucas would have screamed if he wasn’t so tired. _You’re not_. He would have put up a fight if his brain wasn’t clogged up with the image of the hurt on Eliott’s face _. You’re not_. He would have.

“Just leave.” His voice feels small to his own ears. He hates it. He hates it. “I’m tired. And I would like to go back to the dorm.”

“Lucas, I just want to talk to you about your mother. I really think she-“

“I don’t want to hear what you think about her,” His voice seems filled with so much emotion, but he hears this empty note which keeps falling. “You lost the right when you walked out on her. On us. So just take a page out of your own book and leave us the fuck alone.” Lucas sidesteps him, picking up his stuff from behind the counter, “I need to close the store. So.”

He points towards the door. His father quietly nods, turning to him with one last look before leaving through the door. Lucas doesn’t fall.

He moves around, shutting off all the lights. It’s when he’s shrouded in darkness that he feels the beat his heart skips over. But he doesn’t fall then.

He closes the store, putting the keys safely inside his pocket. There’s a streetlamp lit off to one side. There’s the sun beginning its journey behind the horizon.

And there’s someone standing to his right when he turns his neck. Lucas’s heart jumps.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Eliott’s leaning against the wall of the store, right next to the small alley Lucas sneaks to sometimes. His shoulders aren’t sagging anymore, but his face looks determined.

“You told me to stay, didn’t you?”

The bud growing under Lucas turns into a shoot as something breaks and then realigns inside him. He’s swept away, to this foreign island he sees in his dreams. Eliott’s bluish-green eyes turn into stars as Lucas falls. There's a splash, a pool of realization.

Oh he’s fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on tumblr @demauryss. thank you so much for reading!! ily <3


	5. an epiphany of sorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which some final realizations pave way for more hurt than lucas could have ever imagined

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello :-) i hope you all are doing well!!
> 
> i'm honestly sorry for how long this update has taken :((( i didn't mean to take two whole months but life happened and,,,yeah. anyways, i really hope you enjoy this chapter as it's a bit of a fun one :)
> 
> happy reading!

_You told me to stay._

Lucas feels light as a brush of cold wind passes by him. It’s as if a vacuum has sucked all of the air around, leaving nothing but coldness behind. The kind of coldness which welcomes him warmly. The kind of coldness which makes his cheeks tinge with red and his mouth taste of a tangy sweetness like he’s sucking on an orange peel coming right out of the hand of the person standing in front of him. The kind which makes his breath stutter somewhere on its way to his lungs and his legs stumble slightly as he stops himself from losing his balance completely.

 _Oh_.

There’s an orange lamp flickering on when the sun sets below the horizon. Eliott is looking at him, standing a few meters away, his shoulders hanging like they’ve been doing all day today. Lucas hasn’t seen him in this state ever before, and maybe that’s why he wants to reach out and smooth the lines forming on Eliott’s forehead with the pad of his fingertips, wants to rub away the circles forming under his eyes, wants to say so many things which want to pour themselves out with the exhaustion Lucas is feeling.

“I told you to leave too,” is what comes out instead of the well which keeps building up with words choking Lucas. There’s a moment, Eliott looks away, Lucas’s heart still in the palm of his open hand. Till he looks back, and the stars light up on the sky above him, and Lucas’s feels it shaking inside his body.

“I don’t think you meant that,” he says. Eyes unblinking and pricking till Lucas feels like his skin is a piece of muslin caught against its thorns, tearing up the more he tries to fees it. Eliott looks at him then, says: “I don’t think you mean all the things you say.”

A shuddering breath leaves past Lucas’s lips, mixing into the void beginning to coil around him. He breaks then.

“I’m sorry,” Air rushes through him like ash, feeling like it might choke him if he stops talking, “I’m sorry for all that I said earlier. I’m – I was going through something and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you like that. It was shitty behaviour – I was being a dick.”

Eliott looks at him, his eyes a kaleidoscope of colours which Lucas sees even from the distance between him and Eliott. There’s a lovely green which pulls him in, an orange reflected from the lamp, and a light which paints galaxies and starburst Lucas wants to get lost in.

“That was shitty behaviour and I agree with everything you said. Except – except for the dick part. I thought that was supposed to be me?”

There’s a smile playing on the bow of his lips which Lucas can’t help but be affected by. He’s so-

“Shut up! I’m trying to offer you an apology here and you’re being all – all _that_ instead of accepting it.”

Eliott’s brow rises up, “I’m not being all _anything_ , mind you.” His voice is soft when it gets carried to him through the soft breeze which hasn’t stopped ticking his skin. “I’m just – I didn’t think there’d come a time where you’d apologize to _me_.”

Lucas feels heat creeping onto his skin. He avoids Eliott’s eyes, instead choosing to play with a pebble lying by his feet. The air has stilled, and he’s afraid to look up again.

“I’m sorry,” he says, again, because he can’t think of anything else. Because his tongue finds them to be the only words he knows. The only thing lodged inside his brain and travelling inside his veins. The only ground beneath his feet and air in his lungs as he looks up, finding Eliott’s eyes on his. _I’m sorry. For today, yesterday. Forever._

Eliott doesn’t say anything, but shifts his feet so he’s standing up straighter. _This is it,_ Lucas thinks. Eliott doesn’t think Lucas’s apology is worth accepting. Which isn’t considering all the shit he said which he can barely recall now. It’s so stupid it sucks. For him; all of him entirely into this volcano of emotions readying to erupt for the second time today. But now it’s altered, it’s consuming him in a different way. He feels shame. He feels guilt.

Something – everything – he’s never felt around Eliott before.

“Lucas…..” Eliott’s voice cracks at the end, and it causes the air around him to move in flurries and currents. He looks up, and Eliott’s looking at him, really looking at him. The kind which might have made him want to shrivel away and hide any other day. But today he stands his ground.

If Eliott wants to tell him what he fears is on his tongue he’ll take it with dignity, part ways like a normal person and not like the possible asshole – among other things, _a heathen_ – Eliott thinks Lucas is, and then not blame anyone (the cupid) for the predicament in his life despite still believing how much misery they’ve been putting Lucas through and how much they've costed Lucas and –

But Lucas isn’t like that. At least not now. Whatever’s happening to him is all his own fault.

He sees Eliott take in a breath. The weight on his shoulders comes to rest heavily inside Lucas’s chest.

“I know you’re sorry,” Eliott sighs. His statement ends on an open note; there’s more he’s trying to say. “But look I – I just need some time okay? I’m –“ Lucas sees him struggling, sees the way the darkness of the sky above coils under the bags formed under his eyes.

Lucas feels his hands tremble a little. “Yeah,” He says, then. “Of course.” _It’s not like you can recover from the things he said in the span of minutes._

There’s a moment of silence – a moment in which Lucas almost turns his skin over in agony from the awkwardness he feels from the way a heaviness hangs over him and between them. What he would give to be freed from the feelings which currently have a hold on him so tight he might fall again if he let himself. Between his father and the freaking match and Eliott (though the latter two are one and the same), Lucas doesn’t know how to weave himself out of the mess he’s so intricately trapped in.

Eliott clears his throat, one that’s done to get his attention. Lucas breaks from the trance he keeps falling in, looking up to find Eliott looking at him in a way which makes his throat dry and hands regain their tremble. Cupid8776 was really onto something when they matched Lucas with him.

Lucas shuts his brain out, focusing on the way Eliott’s hair looks like he’s raked his hand through it many times; the way his forehead is creased and eyes sink into his skin. He doesn’t look well, and Lucas is made to hate himself even more.

“Well,” his voice is low and tired – like his every being. Lucas hangs onto his words. “Are you planning to come with me or do you have a mind to stand here all night?”

Lucas hears rather than feels his bones singing in relief when he catches a teasing lilt in Eliott’s word, supported by the way a sparkle glows inside his eyes lighting something inside Lucas he can’t put a finger on.

“But- those friends you were meeting?” Fuck. He might be late. Well, he _is_ late. Lucas is a complete idiot and such an ass-

Eliott’s shaking his head before Lucas can completely lose his mind. His face is warm, and eyes equally so. “I told them I have something important to do. They’ll understand.”

 _OH_.

And despite knowing Lucas is still holding Eliott from meeting up with his friends – and despite knowing he hurt him in a way he shouldn’t have – there’s still a warmth pooling inside his chest, a flower blooming and covering the space previously occupied by the air supporting him, delicate petals unfurling till he feels a tingle inside him, body still reeling from his fall earlier; as a smile slowly creeps its way onto Eliott’s lips.

“So?”

So he walks, legs set in motion and heart thumping along to a beat totally different from the sound of his footsteps hitting the floor when he reaches Eliott. Eliott looks like a part of him is hidden behind the clouds as he stands next to Lucas, against the street light blinking to life. His eyes, despite their earlier conversation, are a shade of kind Lucas hides away from , till he takes a step forward, out of his shadow into the golden hue of the light, where – like rivers slowly crawling their way into oceans – he’s enveloped in the citrusy, orang-y scent he used to be so wary of before.

Eliott takes the lead then, stepping alongside Lucas, beginning their walk as crickets sing behind them and the night paves the street into a humid blue Lucas wouldn’t have minded if it weren’t for the way there is nervousness guised under his skin as tremors in his fingers. Awkwardness in his bones and the way his legs form his steps. And a head filled with so many thoughts his heart needs to beat double time to keep up with it –

-and maybe that’s why there’s shortness in the way air leaves his lungs and lips stutter numbly whenever he _thinks_ of saying something – literally anything – but as their footsteps grow quieter with each puff of breath Lucas exhales, the ache restless inside his chest as he feels all the words turn to ash inside his mouth.

Eliott walks quiet next to him. There’s this thing in his step Lucas has always noticed before – the way his shoulders lift with each of his step; the bounce Lucas would always consider pretentious. It would be the first thing Lucas would see – how Eliott would look like light pouring out of a window whenever he crosses Lucas: all bright and warm and a kaleidoscope of Lucas’s bitterness and disgust all combined into one. Lucas would hate it, call it all sort of pompous.

But now, as he turns to his side, it’s entirely missing.

And then there’s a hole gaping inside his chest. He hadn’t been entirely kind with his words earlier, and even before that. He feels the weight of them now – under all this tension caught in his bones from the prospect of thinking Eliott might never want to talk to Lucas again - or worse: how he might never forgive Lucas for the way he has been.

It doesn’t come to Lucas to pay attention to his surroundings. For all he knows Eliott could be leading him to a ditch where he might kill him but he can’t bring himself to care. Not a bit. Not when there are better things to look for, like – like what the fuck he is going to say to cut the silence lodges like a barrier between the two.

It’s maybe because of that – Lucas’s overworked body and retiring brain cells – that he doesn’t expect it. But Eliott’s voice is soft when it comes – and it still sends a wave of shock through him that he stops walking for a moment.

“Celine told me she was going on a date tonight.”

It takes a second for the words to register in his brain. Eliott’s talking to him.

Lucas clears his throat, keeps his eyes trained on the path in front of them. “She told you? That’s…. totally something she would do.”

 _Give it to Celine to actually tell Eliott stuff about her, and be evasive as fuck around Lucas._ He feels Eliott’s eyes on him, and he returns his gaze with a small smile. “I was blackmailed into covering this shift for her. And then she let it slip that Anais was talking about some place she wanted to go. I didn’t catch the whole thing but I connected the dots.”

Eliott’s eyes seem to have grown a bit softer and livelier than their state in the shop. He seems to be smiling more now, and it lifts something off of Lucas’s chest. He turns away, feeling the strange pull of emotion in his chest as he guides them to hide deep beneath his skin, prevents them from showing on his face.

The sound of their footsteps is the only thing which rings inside his ears, but then, from the corner of his eyes, Lucas sees Eliott shrug – a small lift of his shoulders up to his ears – and it has Lucas turning to him again.

_(He can no longer keep his eyes away from Eliott for longer than a second, now. Can he?)_

_(Well, he has never before so why should he now.)_

Eliott supports a gentle lift in his lips as Lucas focuses his attention, undivided, feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand up, observant – to what he doesn’t know. It’s a warm night, and Eliott’s voice is soft, light and Lucas has trouble making sense of the buildings they’re passing. It’s just swirling colours and shaking breaths and the realization that Lucas has come so far in this unfamiliar territory of uneasy stomachs and weakening hearts around the same person he used to feel so strongly _against_ – that going back now seems like such an irrational option which Lucas doesn’t even think about once.

A gleam of streetlight makes the ends of Eliott’s hair look all golden and frayed. “She’s – she’s different with you.”

Lucas shakes his head, smiling despite himself. A star peeks from somewhere in the sky when he looks up, “By different if you mean an annoyance then I totally agree.”

She’s – she’s that. Lucas decides. Annoying and irritating and totally someone Lucas wouldn’t mind sacrificing one of his limb for.

“She reminds me of you,” Eliott continues, briefly glancing at him before looking away. Lucas narrows his eyes, walking at a pace matching Eliott’s slow one. “You’re both pretty similar, you know?”

Lucas’s heart gives a pretty loud thud against the wall of his chest. He cocks his neck to one side as he stares up at Eliott, “Are you trying to say I’m annoying too?”

Eliott’s eyes meet his slowly, softly. His head empties itself of every rational thought, till there’s a static buzzing in his ears up to his brain. “Yes. I mean, when you’re not being one, which is rarely.”

It doesn’t occur to him what their conversation has taken the turn about as Eliott gives a small chuckle, eyes small and crinkly. It’s the first time this day Lucas has seen him laugh, the kind which is soft and alluring all at once. It pulls Lucas in, and he forgets to reply with a clever retort of his own as his head loses the remaining bit of sanity. He looks away from the picture Eliott makes, focusing on the road turning in front of him.

“I can also be _not_ an annoyance, you know?” His voice is weirdly quiet, enveloped by the night and muffled in his throat. But Eliott hears. He hears him.

“I know,” He says, voice equally quiet. Like the situation calls for it. Lucas turns to him, eyes unblinking as they blur everything except him, “The coffee you brought the other day convinced me.”

Eliott says it softly, like he’s admitting a secret. His gaze burns through Lucas, causing him to feel warm all over. His cheeks burn, and it’s an unwelcome feeling which has him rubbing his sweaty palms discreetly over the side of his shirt.

Lucas remembers distinctly telling Idriss the coffee was sent by Mika, but Eliott must have put two and two together when he saw the penis drawn over the cup. It reminds him of the cup he found waiting for him when he made it to work a couple of days ago, and how the clumsy curve of his name over the styrofoam had resembled the way Eliott had put his name on the book Lucas had found hiding in the drawer. He hadn’t known it then, hadn’t thought about how the cup had materialized. He’d been stupid; the tiredness of the day hadn’t had left him with much strength to use his brain much – and so he didn’t know.

But he does. He does now.

“I thought you might like it,” He shuffles his feet, avoiding Eliott’s eyes as much as he can as they take a familiar turn. The campus might come into their view any minute now; and Lucas isn’t, at all, getting upset at the prospect of their walk coming to an end soon.

“I did,” Eliott says, voice tearing through Lucas’s heart and settling securely somewhere there. He smiles, nose scrunched up a bit, says, “And the – um, _drawing_ , was an added bonus if I do say so myself.”

Lucas looks up the, feeling the width his lips turn as he’s sure a huge smile plants itself on his face. He doesn’t think of reigning in his emotions. It’s kind of too late for that now.

So.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Eliott chuckles, “as much as it physically hurts me to say this, but it really seems like you’re getting much better at drawing them, Lucas.”

Lucas’s laugh is carefree and loud in the quiet of the night. “Well, I do have a lot of practice on my hands.”

Eliott’s smile widens, and Lucas finds himself staring at the sight with something new building inside his chest. He’d love to know what this is – this warmth traveling through him with renewed ferocity, leaving a tremor through his bones. The hollow spaces singing with unknown relief and air pressing on his lungs, forcing him to calculate each of his breath –

Lucas doesn’t know what this is. Yet he wants to live in every moment it brings.

Lucas stares – or, tries not to – as Eliott runs a hand through his hair, leaving the strands in a mess. He swallows, and turns his neck to focus on the road dwindling in front of him. It’s marked in hazy oranges and singing crickets. And soon, the wind carrying Eliott’s low voice to Lucas’s unsuspecting ears.

“You know, I was really thinking you were merely over exaggerating that day – because well, no one is technically _shit_ at anything, contrary to what you had told me,” Eliott’s face is turned away from him, and it takes a minute too long for Lucas to really understand what Eliott’s saying – as he’s too busy admiring the sharp curve of his jaw and the unearthly picture his side-profile makes against the dead of the night. “But then the first dick had somehow made its way into my bag – and I can’t say I disagreed with you in that moment.”

He’ turning towards Lucas suddenly, before Lucas has time to make sense of the words leaving his mouth. Eliott’s smile is friendly – too nice and soft and pretty – that the confusion registering in his brain at Eliott’s statement is secondary to all the other things he’s feeling.

But it must show then – the confusion must have displayed itself on his features, for the curve of Eliott’s smile falls a little when a mixed “What are you talking about?” and “When did it happen?” leaves Lucas mouth. Because, frankly speaking, Lucas has no recollection whatsoever about anything Eliott has just said.

His smile carries a certain sadness when he speaks, eyes avoiding Lucas’s as they focus on the unruly mess atop his head, “I kinda figured you didn’t remember.”

And Lucas wants to ask, ‘Didn’t remember what?’ but the campus comes into his view as they round a corner, and Eliott looks away, till Lucas’s heart is a piece of flesh beating inside his heart, now heavy with this unknown feeling of dread and fear. Oh God…

“Eliott?” he asks then, keeping his voice low as they reach the university gate. Asks again, “What are you talking about?”

Eliott goes strangely quiet, and Lucas sees the tiredness from before surrounding him again as his shoulders sag and skin stretches into fine lines over his forehead when he looks back at him. He shrugs, eyes unfocused and hands nestled safely in the pockets of his jeans.

“Uh….you know.” He waves a hand, all nonchalant and…..decidedly _not_ cute. Lucas bites the inside of his cheek, brain forming thoughts without his consent.

“I know what?”

He’s being stubborn, he decides, as they stand in front of the metal gates. But Eliott is too – with the way he’s focused on something above Lucas’s head. His face is troubled, as if he would rather chew his arm than answer Lucas’s question.

Lucas supposes he shouldn’t say this, but he’s kind of enjoying watching this squirmy and uncomfortable Eliott for whatever the reason may be.

“Eliott...” he tries again when Eliott doesn’t answer, “What are you not telling me?”

Eliott purses his lips, eyes still not meeting his. Lucas doesn’t know what it is which is making Eliott act this way. He wonders what it could be – the _thing_ bothering him he’s being idiotically stubborn about. Why he’d rather go to such extents to hide what’s clearly troubling him to keep inside than tell Lucas.

But then again, Lucas wonders, he’s the same person who’d walk Lucas home instead of telling him off straightaway (and one who – according to Celine - had brought her lunch for a week when he had accidentally shut the door on her face).

(Lucas isn’t still bitter about that. He was once, and did some questionable stuff after knowing that. But what matters now is that it doesn’t matter. Yes.)

(And it’s not saying that Lucas has no reason to apologize to Eliott – he does. God, he _does_.)

When he comes back, it’s to Eliott focused on something on Lucas’s face, his breathing steady and head tilted ever so slightly. Lucas doesn’t know how long he’s been out of his mind for - but the way Eliott keeps looking at him starts a chain of fire inside his chest, which continues all the way from the tips of his fingers to that of his ears.

He swallows whatever words his tongue was going to speak. Instead, he raises an eyebrow, asking Eliott ‘what?’ without communicating. It’s an addition to his earlier question as well, which Eliott gets, he supposes, as a sigh escapes past his chapped lips into the night.

“Didn’t know you had such a shitty memory,” Eliott supplies with a cadence to his words which leave a pleasant tingle as they bite Lucas’s skin. He feels a lightness over him as the tingle passes; Eliott’s back to teasing him again – Lucas can work with that.

Yeah. He most definitely can.

“Well, now you know everything about me,” he replies with his tone similar to Eliott’s. Eliott regards him with a serious expression plastered on his face, thinking something Lucas would so love to know. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, he shakes his head, running a hand once again through his hair – which, Lucas realizes then – has got more to do with nervousness than anything else.

“You’re a pain in the ass, do you know that?”

Lucas smiles. Freely, then. The kind which doesn’t strain his muscles, rather makes him want to keep doing this if he gets to see Eliott’s blinding one in return.

“So?”

Eliott sighs, chest heaving in before he completely looks at Lucas. “Well, I – uh – I had met you before – like before _before –_ before uh…..all that at the store happened - at Imane’s party in January _.”_ Eliott cringes, then. But Lucas is more focused at the number of _befores_ he used – _before all that stuff at the store happened_ \- _at Imane’s party in January_ – to even make sense of the painful way Eliott face is twisted.

“And uh – you were drunk. Extremely drunk – the type where you were all wobbly and totally disconnected from the reality. So it’s not a surprise to me that you forgot that – I mean-“ Eliott’s rambling, Lucas’s brain provides, as another wave of coldness sweeps over him; this time preventing him from surfacing from the coldness of the ocean.

“-that’s when you told me you can’t draw to save a life, you know? Actually you don’t but that’s beside the point.” Eliott clasps his hands together, lips pursed uncomfortable as he shoots a hurried glance Lucas’s way. It’s an epiphany of sorts – one which provides him a mirror reflecting on all of the events of his past. The dorm building is peeking through a rampart of trees behind Eliott – and Lucas is having a hard time keeping his mind on Eliott’s nervous words rather than fleeing away and telling Yann all of what he’s recently leaned.

“And there was this very old painting on the wall next to the bathroom –” Eliott continues, taking a breath and looking away. It’s as if he’s unaware of the storm brewing inside Lucas. He’s felt this certain but simultaneously so lost never in his life before – and it’s the fact that it’s Eliott, his match, his sworn enemy, that’s making the ants marching in his stomach very difficult to ignore.

“Idriss says it was supposed to be an ocean which their father had painted, but him and Imane somehow knocked a bottle of turpentine over it before the paint could fully dry. It got all smudged, but they kept it anyway. You then spent half of the time trying to make me see the shapes you were apparently seeing in the painting.” Lucas listens as Eliott’s voice gets quieter with each word. Lucas has no recollection of any of this ever happening to him. The last thing he remembers is hiding from Yann and something resembling the feeling you’d get blindly stumbling through a staircase. His mind is blocking the rest with a barrier he has yet to break.

Lucas opens his mouth to say something – Eliott looks like he’s struggling with words too with the way his teeth gnaw at his lip and forehead remains creased. He’s also avoiding looking at Lucas – but Lucas can’t seem to find the right words. What the hell is he supposed to say?

But then there’s something gripping at him – the feeling with its claw-like grasp holding Lucas by his neck. Lucas feels an odd kind of dread washing over him in his frenzy of _what would have_ and _what might have had happened after that_ which must have led to what happened during their now second meeting.

And Lucas wants to ask. He does. But willing his brain to form ‘ _what happened’_ on his tongue feels like so much like a tedious task – that asking _Did I do something wrong? Did I mess it up? Did I do something to make you act that way_ feels so much out of his alley even though messing up has become some sort of a second nature to him. 

But it feels like he’s incapable of forming such words-

\- feels like he’s burning. Feels like he’s the one holding a lit matchstick to spilled petrol.

But the words come. And they do. Heavy with guilt and so much more. “So you recognized me then? At the store, I mean?”

His statement isn’t carrying any other meaning to it when he runs it again in his head. But the way Eliott grimaces, his body flinching slightly, gives Lucas the idea he’s interpreted something else.

“Uh- yeah, I did.” He doesn’t look up, look at Lucas. And Lucas wants to crawl in a hole and…possibly hibernate into the next century.

A pebble lands by his feet which Eliott seemed to have kicked in his agony to avoid looking at Lucas. Lucas buries his hands in the pockets of his jeans, pursing his lips at the sight of Eliott’s sagging shoulders. This conversation has taken a much bigger toll on him than he’s letting on.

And it only strengthens the doubt clogging Lucas’s chest of something else happening. Something Eliott isn’t telling him. An unknown variable Lucas needs to find if he needs at least a bit of this mess to make sense.

Lucas takes a deep breath but his chest restricts the air from filling him completely. “Hey,” his voice comes out weak, so he tries again, “Eliott I’m – uh – I am –“

Eliott looks up, face all soft and totally not inviting Lucas to smooth the lines formed on his forehead. Lucas bites his lips in a failed attempt to control the restless beating of his heart. In his ears. In his throat. In his stomach. Everywhere it shouldn’t be.

“What?” Eliott asks, his voice equally low. Lucas inhales, airways closed with oranges and warmth. And tries again.

“I’m – I guess, what I’m trying to say is, thank you. For uh- telling me that.”

_For this. For this and for walking me home._

Eliott has a moment of confusion seeping into his features, before he straightens and gives a half-convincing smile, “You’re welcome, Lucas.”

And Lucas knows he’s still blind of the whole truth – still as far from the complete picture as he’s closer. But he smiles, his heart doing a flip and stomach coming up to take its place when Eliott’s lips widen and face transforms beautifully when his eyes turn to half-moons among starry skies.

“I- I should go,” Lucas says, gesturing behind him to nowhere in particular, when his building stands in front of him. “I’ll see you?”

Eliott just nods, eyes flicking down for a second, before catching Lucas’s and forming a storm inside him, “Yeah.”

Lucas turns to leave, moving around Eliott towards the dorm building. But he stops when he’s next to him, brain in question but something telling him to do so.

“Will – will you maybe message me when you get home?”

His heart launches itself into a chaotic sort of movement, one which leaves all of his insides tingling as he watches Eliott’s eyes widening a bit, before looking at him with a certain kind of softness Lucas’s grown to associate as _Eliott_.

“Okay.”

 _Okay_ , yeah. That’s _good_. Perfect. Lucas smiles, but he feels himself getting enveloped in the dragging force from earlier again, one which makes his airways gasp for breath and clothes cling to him as if he’s just been immersed into water.

But when the feeling becomes too much – when it feels like there’s water in place of lungs in his chest and his shirt starts to hug his back uncomfortably – Lucas turns. And as he drags the wetness with him all the way inside the building, he doesn’t look back.

*

Turns out, Lucas isn’t as inconspicuous as he’d like to think he is. Because when he enters his room, Yann takes one look at his features; and that’s enough for him to launch himself at him, with “What happened?” being the first thing which comes out of his mouth.

“Why did you assume something happened?” Lucas wrinkles his nose, leaving his bag to a side before jumping into his bed. Yann swivels his chair around to look at Lucas.

“You just look like a freight ran you over, buried you under the earth, and then you had to crawl all the way up by shoveling the ground with nothing but your hands.” Yann shrugs, keeping his eyes on Lucas. He’s rotating a pen in his hand. If Lucas weren’t feeling exactly like Yann had graciously described, he would have taken the same pen to poke Yann’s eyeballs out.

“Just,” he breathes, propping his neck on his arm as he meets Yann’s eyes, “work stuff.”

Yann doesn’t miss a beat. His eyes gain a sparkle in the dull light of the room, “Eliott?”

Lucas breathes out a laugh. He didn’t use to be this bad at hiding his feelings before.

“How do you know?”

Yann shrugs, again, “Lucky guess.” There’s a smile pulling up at his lips, accompanied by a knowing glint to his eyes which makes Lucas realize that maybe his skills have long since withered with the rest of his sanity.

Lucas sighs, his walk with Eliott burning like a phantom touch on his skin. He looks at Yann, who sits waiting patiently for Lucas to fill him in.

“I just – I learnt some new things today – well, Eliott told me some stuff and now I’m….confused.”

Yes, that. He simply doesn’t know what to think, nor what to make of the change he’s slowly being familiarized to around Eliott – the former dick but now an enigma which Lucas would give his all to know more of.

Yann makes a sound in his throat, and Lucas moves his attention back to him. In the time Lucas’s spent dwelling inside his brain, Yann has moved his chair so now he sits closer to Lucas, face expectant of hearing all what Lucas wants to make sense of with all of him.

He sighs, rolling on his back and looking up at the underside of Yann’s bed. It feels ages ago when Yann had him paste his letter over there, a result of losing the stupid bet they had made. Lucas was damn sure the cupid was going to declare Lucas hopeless once and for all – what with the mess he’d enclosed in his letter for the cupid to find and hopefully the reason for losing all of their sanity and patience. Yann had been the optimistic one, and when he’d realized Lucas wasn’t going to listen to his preaching, he’d made a bet – a terrible one at that – and the next thing he knew, he was reading the cupid’s _suggestions_ as Yann lost his breath on the floor by laughing too much.

Now the space remains empty, and Lucas thinks how the stuff leading him to this very moment feels terribly similar to lose a step on the stairs – the initial, fleeting feeling of your heart coming at your throat before the fall ensues.

He thinks. About the cupid and Eliott and everything else. He thinks, and it feels like he hasn’t stopped falling since.

“Do you remember –,“ Lucas starts, voice heavy and eyes desperately glued to the underside of Yann’s bed, “ – that day almost a month ago, when I’d come back from home, Bas talked about meeting Eliott?”

Lucas turns his neck towards Yann. He nods, and urges Lucas to continue.

“Eliott told me he’d met me that day,” he says it in one exhale of breath, rushing the words together. Yann’s forehead wrinkles, and he looks at Lucas with a question on his face, “And you’re confused about that?”

“No, no.” Lucas exhales a laugh, and it feels hollow. His phone makes a sound from where he’s dropped it on his bed. It’s Eliott, and while there’s a wave of relief passing through him; something in Lucas breaks yet again.

He thinks about it, again. There is nothing wrong with it – nothing in Eliott’s retelling of scenes currently wiped out from Lucas’s memory which should make him feel like he’s missing a pretty big part of a puzzle. And the way Eliott was a little evasive and avoiding Lucas’s eyes added to the fact that there was something he wasn’t telling Lucas. Something which clearly mattered to him and included Lucas in a sense.

He tells Yann all that. Yann listens – and when Lucas is done explaining all what’s making his brain turn itself over in thoughts which don’t sound logical even to Lucas’s own ears – sits up straighter in the chair, now alarmed in a way which makes Lucas slowly sit up in caution too. Yann’s face twists before his eyes widen and a very constipated look settles over his features.

“Yann, are you okay?”

“Lucas,” he says, voice filled with wonder and eyes looking like they’ve discovered something hidden, like the way his mother gets whenever her plants form a new bud or a seedling makes its way from the seeds she’d have planted.

“You -,” Yann speaks, his voice not losing the factor of awe and reverence it held before, “- you are _not_ allowed to slap me for this, but _do you like him_?”

For a moment, the oxygen traveling to Lucas’s lungs feels stuck inside his throat. His heart gives a stutter and a wave of something foreign washes over him. It feels distinctly of jitters and anxiety all coiling into one. Lucas brain doesn’t help matters one bit as it forms a direct contrast to the frenzied state his heart has developed behind the fluttering inside his chest.

“Lucas,” Yann’s voice comes through the haze of thoughts inside his head as he repeats himself, “Do you like Eliott?”

And Lucas – Fuck. “Yes.” he breathes, feeling coils in his stomach loosen and tighten at the same time; as his breath gets shorter and heart wreaks a havoc. “I – I do, Yann. Fuck, I like him a lot.”

And maybe he has, for a long time now. This part of him, hidden under his bones like a bird in the night, waiting for the morning to come so it can sing again, coming to surface after being submerged under water for so long. It’s what Lucas pulled out with himself when he came out of the ocean weighing him under, drenched to his bones, each part of him singing with renewal as if they’ve soaked sunlight for the first time.

(And maybe they have.)

“I’m so fucked Yann,” The laugh he forces breaks at the end, transforming into a sigh which leaves his body in a tumultuous manner.

Yann’s face is soft and bathed in the dim light of the room. Lucas really wonders how tired he may be dealing with all of Lucas’s shit since forever. “Lucas,” his voice matches the softness displayed on his face as it comes in a whisper. He gets up from his chair and sits next to Lucas, looping an arm around his shoulders as he pulls him into a hug. Lucas buries his face into Yann’s neck, wrapping his arms around Yann’s waist. Yann places a kiss on his hair, and rest his head there.

“Don't you think you owe your cupid some credit now?”

His voice comes muffled, and Lucas doesn’t miss the light teasing in his tone.

“Shut up,” he pushes weakly at Yann’s chest, making no move to separate himself from him. He needs as much comfort as he can get. “I know I’m an idiot but that doesn’t mean you should make fun of me.”

Yann chuckles low in his chest and starts running his fingers through Lucas’s hair. It brings an odd sort of calm, one which makes some tension deflate from his shoulders but makes him hyper-aware of the way his heart is literally in his throat, caught in a storm meant to shake all of him. It’s funny how Lucas hasn’t realized it before – how he hadn’t been able to put a name to the change he was feeling around Eliott. It’s – funny and frustrating and it hurts so, _so_ much Lucas forgets to placate his heart – just lets it beat in his bones and his stomach and every fucking where it’s not supposed to.

“Tell me about him,” Yann prompts, softly, giving Lucas a chance to back out if he wants.

Lucas sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. “Do you have the emotional and mental capacity to hear me vent about him?”

He feels Yann shrugging, and then he’s saying it in his hair, “I’m just in a mood to listen to relationship problems tonight. Bas made Arthur and me quite partial to it.”

Lucas snorts, wanting to clarify two things: First, he was not having ‘relationship problems’ as Yann kindly put. He isn’t even sure if he’s even in a _relation_ to said problems; the _ship_ part he agreed with since – well, since his life, for the most part, has been a clamorous journey marked by upheavals of water below and the sky above; now strengthened by the pandemonium created by his mind in response to the cupid’s play.

“I honestly don’t know where to start,” Lucas’s voice comes out muffled, restrained by his airways as they struggle for air, “Eliott’s just – he’s _something_. I’ve – I’ve always thought he hated me. Sometimes I still do. One moment he’s this – this dick; always glaring and sneering and void of any motions when I fall from a stool, mixing insane amounts of salts in my coffee, chiding me for being late. And then – then he’s leaving coffee for me and smiling at me from across the room and walking me home and – and,” Lucas stops, a ball of air in his throat making it hard for him to speak. Yann rubs his hands over Lucas’s shoulder, rubbing some of the distress away. Lucas takes a breath, and with voice as quiet as the night, whispers, “- and cancelling on his friends for that.”

For me, _me_.

Lucas leaves out the part about the meeting with his father and his argument with Eliott before that. He remembers Eliott’s hanging shoulders, his paling skin and eyes sunken into dark. A pang of hurt originates in his chest when Lucas thinks about it, about what happened, but he quickly dismisses it away.

“He’s – god, I don’t know what he’s making me feel,” Lucas complains, to Yann or to his heart or whatever. His brain is a jumbled mess and his heart can barely beat. “One minute I want to strangle his neck to make him shut up and the other –,” Lucas stops at that. He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know what he wants.

But Yann has an idea.

“The other you want to kiss him to make him shut up, right? I could see that working, but you might need to practice calculating height to distance ratios and angle measurements before you go jumping on the poor boy.”

“Yann, what the fucking hell!” Lucas breaks apart from a Yann who looks too smug for his liking. He’s quietly laughing, not taking even a bit of pity at Lucas’s distressed state. It offends Lucas that Yann didn’t even consider it for a second how bad Lucas actually is at math. But he holds his tongue; at least one of them is getting some entertainment out of it.

“You know that’s true!” Yann says, finding whatever going on inside his head so damn funny it has tears streaming down his face, “You need to get some practice in if you’re gonna be _smooching_ the person you badly wanted to kill before. Or I may have severely miscalculated the situation and it was always the other way around.”

Lucas wrinkles his nose in confusion, “What other way?”

Yann has a childlike glee on his face as he gets up from Lucas’s bed and starts pacing in front of him, “That you never wanted to kill him in the first place! I know for a fact you don’t hate him. You just wanted to get him in a room and-“

Lucas snaps, picking up his pillow and launching it straight for Yann’s head. It hits him square in the nose, and it’s enough to have him shut his mouth.

“Lucas!” He whines, rubbing his nose, “Stop attacking me!”

Lucas shakes his head, a smile pulling at his lips. It feels good for a moment, before reality rears her ugly head and Lucas is left with a weight over his shoulders again.

Yann notices the change, but doesn’t come to sit next to Lucas this time. Wise call.

“Is it about the party?” he asks, his voice coming through a barrier made from Lucas’s emotions and the piece of Lucas’s heart where a hole is gaping.

“Yeah,” Lucas nods, “I was totally out– like you guys keep telling me.” The night – well, part of it – is a memory Lucas has kept locked away in a corner of his brain, preventing himself from remembering it too often. It forms a part of the stupidest decisions he’s ever made – so much stupid that even Yann doesn’t know.

“Lucas,” Yann asks, his voice now serious and heavy, “What actually happened that night? Like – before you got completely shitfaced and ran away. Before – with Damien?”

Lucas bites his lips so hard he almost draws blood. For as long as he could, Lucas has avoided talking about Damien - even thinking about him now has his toes curling in disgust and shame tainting his face in red.

“His – uh – his match found us on the balcony,” Lucas cringes, his eyes glued to the ground, avoiding Yann’s to the best of his ability as he lets out a barely audible “What?” Lucas wants to dig up a hole to crawl into, but his feet root themselves to the ground, and the mattress under him seems to sink more in that moment.

“Yeah – uh, he also said he was Damien’s boyfriend, and it went down as well as you can imagine. He called me every name under the earth and then left. I had a moment to dump whatever I was drinking over Damien’s head when he tried to explain. And then I spent the rest of the night alone – or maybe hiding from Damien. I guess Eliott might have found me doing just that.”

He still feels a shudder run through him as the image of the sadness which appeared on that person’s face comes running to his mind. The fall which occupied their smile when Lucas had broken apart from Damien, unknown to what he had been signing up to.

“Lucas, that’s – fuck! Why didn’t you say anything before?” Yann is at his side again, face all crumpled and lined.

“I didn’t want to,” Lucas says, “How could I when I got to kiss the boy I had been stupidly crushing on and planning to ‘beat the system with’ turned out to be this asshole cheater?” He mutters quite ruefully.

It’s terrible, really. Because imagine: you’re all giddy and high on broken adrenaline when you think you can finally leave the cupid behind - when the cute guy from your philosophy lecture you’ve had only one conversation with turns up at your other friend’s birthday party. And you speak a couple more words before you’re kissing him on the balcony, and his boyfriend is then telling you how much of an asshole you are – yeah, sure you would go screaming about it to everyone else.

Yann takes a calculated breath which Lucas hears through the fog his brain accumulates. “You’re an idiot, Lucas!”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Lucas asks, looking up at him, voice now losing all conviction. Yann takes his seat next to him and places a hand on his shoulder as if to placate him. It works, barely, before Lucas’s mind is sending his thoughts into overdrive again.

“I went and drank so much I barely remember anything which happened afterwards. I just – God, Yann! What if I said something to Eliott and that’s why he was like that when we met again? What if I said or did something to hurt him and then – Yann, _what if I was an idiot?_ What am I going to do now?”

It’s a new feeling, this one – the realization that Lucas himself must have done something to piss Eliott off. There’s no doubt about it – no part of Lucas still thinking Eliott was in the wrong there. It’s terrifying and chilling all at once. And it makes his heart stutter and brain lose its remaining cells.

“Lucas, god – I don’t know. I really don’t.” Yann sighs, rubbing his shoulders. Lucas hangs his head low, brain asking the same thing over and over again.

“I am fucked, Yann,” he whispers, feeling something akin to dread creep up his chest, “I am so terribly fucked. I have feelings for this guy who might not be into me and-“

“But you don’t know that,” Yann interrupts, “You don’t know what he feels.”

And while that’s true, there’s still a much larger part of Lucas which can’t help but think Eliott doesn’t like him, atleast not in a way Lucas wants him to. He hasn’t been necessarily kind to Eliott in the past, and even though his walk with Eliott had been more on the _friendlier_ side of the spectrum, it still didn’t cut what Lucas has told Eliott earlier.

But he doesn’t tell Yann that. Because if he does, there’s no stopping Yann kicking Lucas’s ass to fucking Pluto.

“And I really do believe you should have a talk with him – like, an adult talk. Wait no! That came out wrong.” Lucas smiles despite himself, watching as Yann struggles with himself. “What I’m saying is, you two need to have a proper conversation. He needs to tell you whatever else that happened, and you – you need to tell him about your match. I have no idea how you’re going to do that – but I do hope you’ll be able to find some way. And go to sleep while you’re at it. And Lucas,” Yann stops speaking as he stands up and starts making his way to his bed, “Don’t overthink, okay?”

Lucas smiles, nodding, as he feels his heart give out this strange beat which gets lost somewhere on its way from Lucas’s heart to the rest of him. Yann gives a close-lipped smile in return, reaching to ruffle Lucas’s hair before he starts ascending the steps to his bed. Lucas sighs, placing his pillow back at its place, and flopping down with a loud sigh.

He closes his eyes, tries to relax his shoulders, and when his vision gets interrupted with green and citrus and stars – Lucas starts doing exactly that: overthink.

*

Between two hours of sleep and restless scrolling on social media after that, Lucas finds himself starting on an assignment in the middle of night which is actually just early Saturday morning. He uses the flashlight of his phone as his source of light – and when that isn’t enough to distract his mind, Lucas turns to his phone again, opening up his Instagram and starting mindless scrolling again.

It’s then a picture of Celine with Anais pops up on his feed, with Anais nestled against the crook of Celine’s neck as she looks at the camera with a smile wide enough to break the earth in half. Lucas feels his heart getting larger the more he stares at the picture, the muscles in his cheek straining with how big his own smile is. It’s enough for him to lose his thoughts for a moment, as he likes the picture and sends a quick message to Celine.

*

Sleep becomes a struggle then, with the one person Lucas was counting to get his mind off of Things turns against him. It’s all downhill after that – with both Yann’s voice and Celine’s words circulating in his head like a fucking mantra he can’t get out of his system.

And as he lays awake, far past the point of counting sheep, it again comes to visit him – the feeling of being pushed underwater, as what little control he has on his airways seeps out of his hands on to the floor. It presses on his chest, harder with each breath, till all he can think about is sunshine smiles and –

And Eliott.

It’s stupid of him, really, to be losing sleep over a boy. Well, technically not just a boy but his match who just doesn’t know that yet. But that’s not going to remain as such for long because knowing Lucas, his brain or heart or both are going to mess it up sooner or later.

And it’s stupid – for Celine to make so much sense. For the tiny and adamant part of him which keeps telling him to looks past all of what she had said. To keep denying whatever that’s breaking through the cracks inside him. To keep it buried under all the dust his lungs have accumulated over the years.

But he’s tired. So, so tired. Of his heart. Of always running, always hiding. So he thinks about everything about to make him lose his mind. And he thinks, about how much he likes Eliott. How much he’s liked Eliott since he doesn’t know when. It could be months, days, hell – even seconds. But he likes him. He likes him so fucking much.

And he’s scared, you see. There’s something in his mind, lodged somewhere in his heart, which keeps reminding him of the last time he’d opened his heart to someone. Granted it hadn’t been allowed to go far, which Lucas was more than thankful for, but it had hurt. It hurt so bad that Lucas had lost whatever remaining hope he had for the system in a blink. So much so he was forced to make that terrible bet, and hoard all that resentment for poor Cupid8776, despite them doing their best (besides dealing with Lucas’s attitude) to find him a match.

It makes shame pool in his stomach. He was – still is – an idiot; an asshole to Eliott and the cupid both. It’s frustrating and tiring all the same – that he has so many apologies due to the same people. His heartbeat quivers when he thinks about it – about Eliott not even accepting his apology. About him rejecting Lucas _if_ he ever tells him about him being his match.

But now, Lucas has finally accepted his heart for what it is – a dumbass for going after people way out of his league. What he feels for Eliott – the way his heart skips successive beats and his brain stops working whenever Eliott as much as looks at him – Lucas’s sure he hasn’t felt that way before, not for anyone. The sweaty palms, the stuttering in his words, the way he doesn’t know if he wants to – fuck you Yann – strangle Eliott with his bare hands or push him against the wall and just…..just kiss him with all that he is; he’s never felt this before.

And it’s terrifying. Making his hands shake and throat dry kind of terrifying. Eliott’s pretty – he’s so _beautiful_. The kind of beautiful which parallels the way light falls on a stream of water, illuminating the life underneath. The kind of beautiful Lucas thinks about when a leaf falls over his head when he’s sitting under a tree his mother had planted. The kind like the sky on a day where it has all but rained. The kind which persists in his bones and makes him drift further away from reality the more he thinks about it.

And as Lucas tosses in his bed for sleep to come – he thinks about it. Eliott Demaury is beautiful; and when he finally drifts away, there’s that strengthening the cave in the ground beneath him as he loses the remaining bit of his footing. And falls.

*

The next few days go in a bit of blur.

Yann becomes pretty adamant to devise a plan to rid Lucas of his misery. They come with a total of five scenarios – all of which Yann deems perfect solution for all of Lucas’s problem. _That’s it, Lucas_ , he says Saturday morning, _you’re not gonna be miserable for long_.

But all it did was make Lucas want to rip his hair out of his scalp and feed them to Yann one by one, because each of them involved Lucas _going up to Eliott and confessing his undying love for him._

Which was a no for Lucas. A big, fat no. Because Lucas wasn’t going to actively struggle just to have his broken heart returned to him on a tray filled with the remnants of his happiness.

Yann had sighed after that, looking as if he had lost all hope in Lucas ever finding someone in his life. It didn’t go anywhere from that, with Yann telling Lucas he was going to need to make an effort, and Lucas saying he would if his mind (or heart, for that matter) would allow him to.

And it was all a leap of faith, really, because Lucas didn’t know if such possibility even existed that Eliott would feel the same towards him, despite what Yann kept repeating. And God forbid if Eliott had already found a match during the time Lucas was busy being an asshole to him. And what if he was already in a sound, happy relationship with his match? Sure that would make sending that request for match cancellation much easier for Lucas but-

But he wasn’t sure if he would be able to handle his heart after that.

And the thought plagues him, heavily, when he calls his mother in hopes of getting some peace of mind. He doesn’t tell her anything, just listens to her routine which she says is getting boring- as he suggests her to go out more- as she tells him about the two people in her cooking club finally resolving their issues, and her getting a big sum from the betting pool going on because “Lucas, you don’t know. They kissed – on the lips – it was beautiful.”

And it’s the thought which makes him ask – how his mother had been so damn sure about it, when she would tell him about how terrible their fights would get.

Her response, in a way, was frightening.

“Because sometimes, it’s that way, Lucas. We need someone who can challenge us, someone we can challenge back. Someone who accepts us in spite of those challenges. Someone, when your brain thinks about them, says: _They’re here to test me_ ; and someone who makes _you_ think, _I’d be lost if they are not_.”

It’s not natural the way his throat closes up then, the way his heart quickens its beat and sweat gathers in his palms. It’s not natural the way the lie tumbles out of his lips when his mother asks about his sudden silence. I did not sleep well, Mama. _And it’s definitely not natural_ , she tells him, the sleepless nights he’s had so many in a row.

It’s then that Lucas’s mother makes him promise to see a professional, and sends him the contact number of one of the psychiatrist she used to see in Paris, after worrying over him for a good minute. Lucas promises her, and as he stares at the number on his phone screen, he thinks about Yann, his mother. He thinks about the way his brain has been acting, and –

And he thinks about how a conversation with a psychiatrist is long overdue.

*

So in some confusing turns of events, Lucas finds himself walking out of Dr. Gael office on a Monday after his classes. He messages Mika to have the evening off, and in some more confusing events, Celine agrees to cover his shift. The session is awkward, to say the least, with his brain not even letting him get a single sentence out before closing up. Dr. Gael seems to get his struggle, as she prescribes him some melatonin after he tells her about the problem starting when he father had walked out on his mother a couple years ago. He doesn’t have to go in detail about the business with his father, with her having known a lot through the sessions with his mother.

It’s when he’s walking out that she tells him to come to her if he has anything more to say. Lucas falters then, plasters a smile so transparent he sees Dr. Gael looking through it, and because he’s a dumbass, says, “I will.”

*

The session leaves him mostly confused but at least has him sleeping well at night.

He doesn’t think about it much, and tries to focus more on his uni and work, the latter being a feat of its own.

Because when he isn’t caring about that, he’s caring for Eliott, there with his bright smile whenever he sees Lucas. There with his warmth, and the way he makes Lucas go through a thousand circles in a minute. It also doesn’t help that Celine becomes extra wary of the both, always popping in whenever Lucas gets as much as a second alone with Eliott.

And it’s one particular afternoon, days after the little walk with Eliott which is painted in blue now. He’s sat on his usual place behind the counter, with Mika on yet another date with the person now he identifies as Camille, one who introduced himself to Lucas minutes before Mika was barging through the back office. It was funny, seeing Mika flustered as he dragged a laughing Camille behind him. Lucas has managed a final wave before they left, and continued to the counter.

He hasn’t minded when Mika asked for him to man the front desk. It provides him a distraction now (meaning he is able to think more and worry more and just – he has more time to do the stuff he normally would under short time) so he deems it a win-win, either way.

(Celine later questioned the definition, leading Lucas to flip her off.)

And as Lucas busies himself behind the refuge he has formed, he thinks more (less) about his work and less (more) about stuff other than it. He isn’t going to just….use that time to torture his brain more, now will he?

But it is exactly that which he is doing.

With Eliott and Celine at the back and no customers around, Lucas takes out his phone and unintentionally opens up his messages with Celine. He doesn’t have a mind but something compels him to do so when he flicks to their older messages, the one from the fateful night from before.

He doesn’t know what it means; Celine telling him Eliott was worried for him then. It’s frustrating for his heart, annoying for his mind. Lucas had fled because of the letter, when he still considered Eliott as the dick he isn’t – when he – he felt so strongly for him the thought of him actually being his match had caused such an amount of pain and ridicule that for a moment he thought it had been some sort of the universe’s play.

But it was just the thistle which flipped Lucas’s world – the flap of the butterfly causing the storm which was planned to destroy all of Lucas in its wake.

Lucas bites his lips as he reads the entire conversation. It can be possible that Celine’s only messing with him. But deep down, in some tender part of his heart yet to be charred, he knows despite all the shit Celine gives him, she would never do that.

And it’s a leap of faith to believe that, when his brain’s telling him to run, when his heart quickens when the sound of footsteps approaching reach his ears.

“You’re here,” the person says, and Lucas has a moment of panic as he looks up at the holder of the voice leaning over the counter to look at him.

Lucas smiles, turning off his phone as Eliott rounds the counter and comes to stand near him.

“Yeah. Were you looking for me?”

Eliott shrugs then, and in the moment it takes for Lucas’s breath to leave his lungs, Eliott’s crouching next to Lucas in a whiff of citrus and light.

And as if his system is programmed to react just to that, Lucas feels warm all over.

“Maybe. I was beginning to think you’re hiding in a corner and uh- drawing _that stuff_ for me again.”

Lucas wouldn’t have guessed his smile to get any wider than it already was. But it does. God. “If you had told me before you keep thinking about my _drawings_ , I would have made you sign a daily subscription for them.”

Eliott laughs. It’s closed-eyed and loud and carefree. Lucas wants to paint this – but he figures none of his stick figures or deformed penises would do justice to the sight Eliott makes. But till then, he paints the pictures in his memory, in the back of his eye lids– so that whenever he closes his eyes he’s greeted by the halo of light on Eliott’s head and the crescents in the shape of his eyes.

“I would have.” Eliott says when his laughter dies down. Says, “Makes me feel like I’m special.”

It’s said with a teasing jab, but it makes a pool grow in the depth of Lucas’s stomach. “Hey!” Lucas will lie till it gets engraved on his tombstone, “What makes you think that you are?”

Eliott hums, and Lucas’s heart jumps in his chest, “That Celine annoys you just as much as me, but somehow I’m the only one you torture yourself to make those hideous figures for.”

It’s said with a surety Lucas can’t seem to parallel when he forces the teasing nature in his tone, “Fuck off,” He’s – he’s never thought about it. But now that he does, no one can make him feel the way Eliott does, “You aren’t the only person I’ve ever made any drawings for.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, I used to make them for my mother all the time when I was a kid.”

If Yann were here, he would laugh at Lucas’s stupidity. The way Eliott smiles makes it look like Lucas has helped Eliott’s case more instead of his own.

“Yeah?”

Lucas keeps his mouth stubbornly close as Eliott’s inches closer a bit. A bit which makes all the difference when you see it the way Lucas does. When you see the dangerous proximity of their hands lying side by side; of the way Lucas’s chest refuses to let up air.

“Lucas!” Eliott prods at his foot with his own when he turns his neck away from him. “Did you really use to?”

And it’s something which has passed in flashes through Lucas’s mind. His mother, a lunchbox, shaking hands and hanging shoulders.

Lucas takes a breath in as his hands play with each other, enclosed in his lap. He doesn’t know if Eliott has noticed the way a thorn has grown in his throat, one which makes speaking up so, so hard. But it’s there, a small part, tender and warm in the charred mess of his heart, wanting to let Eliott in there too.

He exhales a short puff of air, and when he looks up, Eliott’s there with his bright eyes and softened smile staring _through_ him.

“Mama would always leave a note in my lunchbox which I would find in school,” Lucas smiles. It’s bittersweet when he remembers it, and it leaves an ache similar to hurt in his stomach. “It used to be like that – a stick figure and a sun right in the corner on a piece of paper mama would have found. In my lunchbox. Or books. Sometimes taped on my bed when I would get home. She wasn’t any good at drawing; could barely draw a circle without a compass. The eyes of those figures were always disproportionate, the strands of hair all mismatched and mouth too big. But for me those were the best thing anyone could ever do for me.”

It’s where he gets those stellar skills from, Lucas thinks, focusing on a spot over Eliott’s shoulder. His fingers remain in a hold in his hand, afraid of what they might do if Lucas let them free.

“It was our secret, something which Mama and I shared. When my father would get angry, she would draw him with steam blowing from his ears and face too red. I always thought it suited him too much – and it would always cheer me up.”

Lucas moves his eyes to Eliott, who’s listening quietly. In the back of his mind, he wonders about Celine, and the store, but at the moment he doesn’t seem to bring himself to care; not when Eliott smiles to encourage him; and it feels like the spark in his stomach has ignited a fire which sets his bones aflame.

“But then – then she – uh, she got sick. Sometimes she couldn’t even get out of bed to send me off to school. Our housekeeper would make me lunch, but she wouldn’t make the drawings.” Lucas looks down to where his thumbs sit fiddling. “Her situation only kept getting worse. I didn’t know what was happening. And I thought – I thought if her drawings could help me cheer up, maybe mine could help her too. So I started making those drawings for her too. Stick figures with chalky hair and long flowery dresses; bright smiles and blue eyes, like she would make for me.”

His father would come home late. Sometimes, Lucas would spend the night alone, curled against his mother, when his father would return. The sound of the footsteps would help him calm down his racing heart, sending him to sleep. But then, sometimes, he would stay awake all night, in hopes of hearing that sound again, but then it stopped. The sound, altogether, as his father left.

Lucas tells Eliott all that.

He inhales, citrus and lemon and warmth, when Eliott turns his body fully towards him. He looks up to find nothing but the warmth he feels inside his stomach, and it only makes the fall hurt more.

“It was him? The man who came to meet you when-“

Eliott leaves the end of his sentence hanging. He seems to struggle, like he can’t find the right words; his eyes wide and unblinking and pulling all of Lucas in. He nods, finding his voice hidden in his throat, “He was, yeah.”

Eliott doesn’t stop, then, “And your mother? Is she okay?”

“She is – or, she will be,” Lucas shrugs, “She’s – she’s schizophrenic. She was admitted to this facility which really helped her. But then, sometimes, her mind acts up, and she stops taking her medicine, and it feels like – like we’re starting from the bottom again, you know?”

Lucas looks at Eliott. His forehead is line, and he’s gnawing on his bottom lip as if- as if he’s torn about something. His eyes are focused and unblinking, and there’s a sheen of something falling over them when he takes a breath.

“Yeah, I -,” he stops, face determined but soft, the end of his sentence breaking as his voice quivers. Lucas watches, fixed, as Eliott takes in a deep breath. He’s struggling to get words out, Lucas thinks, remembering every moment he’s felt the same way too. Something in the back of his mind starts to break.

“I know how that feels,” Eliott says then, this time determined. His voice is soft, and Lucas feels his heart beating inside his neck.

“Yeah?” Lucas asks, voice soft and thin.

“Yeah,” Eliott repeats, soft but sure. His eyes stay on Lucas as something falls over them, “I’m bipolar.”

And it’s – it’s stopping whatever it was which was starting to break inside Lucas. He looks at Eliott, at the way his eyes keep moving over his face. Lucas offers a small smile, “Okay.”

It seems to take Eliott by surprise as he widens his eyes, but there’s a smile playing on his lips all the same, “Okay?”

Lucas shrugs, “Yeah.” He doesn’t know what else to say.

Eliott’s smile transforms, and Lucas feels warm all over. There’s blood rushing to his face for some reason, and sweat gathering in his palms which he wipes over his jeans. There’s a moment, one in which Lucas feels his smile blocking his words, but he needs to say one more thing.

“Hey Eliott?” His heart feels heavy with the burden of words, ribs too tight to contain its growing size. For a moment, it leads him to somewhere else; where the words feel too new to be spoken. For a moment, he thinks he might make a mistake. For a moment, he seems ready.

But then Eliott is humming, and Lucas’s brain takes over. “Thank you for listening to me.”

Eliott’s smile, as it comes, is grounding, “Thank you for telling me.”

*

It starts to go like this: as Lucas sees Eliott’s energy return to him, as his shoulders lift and his smile towards Lucas grows larger each day, Lucas finds himself slowly losing all of his strength. There comes many moments when Lucas nearly gives in to his heart, almost walks up to him, with words stuttering in his throat and hands shaking beside him, but Celine always comes to find him. He supposes he should be annoyed with her, but all he does is find this as a blessing when Eliott blooms into a flower, un-plucked, from the ground when he laughs, or the way his eyes crinkles as he tells Celine in the honeyed tone Lucas finds in his dreams, “What is it that you want now?”

And Celine always has an excuse. Always. Even when they’re beginning to form a routine working side by side, getting to know each other more, and Celine’s barging through with a ‘Did you know Mika got his letter? From the Cupids?’ and it has all of them sprinting towards him, faces covered in smiles as they find Mika with the person Lucas has always seen him leaving with.

And it makes Lucas happy, sort of. The System couldn’t – or hasn’t worked for him – but atleast it has for Mika. For Yann. Basile. For many other people. But he doesn’t care. Not now. When Eliott comes to him, with the light behind him and moon in eyes, and says,

“Do you believe in that?”

And Lucas asks, “What?”

“The Cupids. Do you believe in that?”

And Lucas almost replies, _I didn’t before_. But he holds his tongue. And with a smile which he hopes doesn’t display what he’s feeling, says, “Yes.”

And as Eliott smiles blooms along with Lucas’s heart, there’s an uneasiness which grips Lucas. He’s found so much about Eliott, but this, he hasn’t, “And you?”

Eliott nods then, “I do, yeah. I think so.”

“Do you believe it too? That you’ll find someone to love through them.”

Eliott’s face turns, and his smile gets softer. His eyes pull Lucas’s heart in, before they leave it a broken mess on the floor, “I have.”

And it’s stupid. It’s terrifying and stupid and it hurts. It hurts so much when Lucas thinks about it now. When Lucas thinks about Eliott, about the cupid. About how they have ruined Lucas’s life without knowing it. When they matched him with Eliott and have him match with someone else.

It feels like karma, feels like his heart forcibly leaving his chest. And as he stays awake yet another night, Lucas feels it. The thorn of something like resentment breaking from the place where his heart used to be. He hates it. Because -

The cupid is an idiot. A fucking idiot. They think they’re above Lucas and every fucking person in the planet. They might be. Lucas isn’t against that. But they think they know everyone. And it’s where Lucas draws the line.

They don’t know Eliott like Lucas does. They don’t know that he’s a piece of rotting fish. They don’t know that he caused Lucas to fall from a fucking stool and Lucas has hated him ever since. They don’t know what Lucas has learned about him by not being an asshole for once.

They don’t know that his favorite thing ever is the smell of the grass after it’s rained, and the feel of it against his feet at an ungodly hour of the night. Like if that isn’t the most pretentious thing ever. They don’t know that he gets ballistic if the tap isn’t closed all the way because the slow tip tip of water transports him to the hell. They don’t know that he hates chocolate, but once ate a whole pack of chocolate chips just because Lucas told him he wouldn’t be able to.

They don’t know that each page of his book is covered in little sparkles and stick figures of Lucas he must have drawn after Lucas would have pissed him off. They don’t know he visibly pales when Lucas puts on Britney Spears but knows every word to her song because Lucas has heard him sing along to them when he thinks no one is listening. They don’t know how Lucas has seen him blowing on ice-cream to lessen the cold. They don’t know how Eliott gets shy whenever someone compliments his work and Lucas hates how he appears as if he doesn’t know how fucking amazing he is at every fucking thing he does. They don’t know that he knows how and where to pull at Lucas’s strings to get him boiling. They don’t know that he knows all of Lucas’s ticks and each of his likes – and goes against them just because. They don’t know that he’s made himself a considerable part of Lucas’s life – and that he causes Lucas’s death every time his eyes turn to little moons when he smiles. They don’t know that Eliott’s the reason Lucas has cramps in his stomach and just when he thinks he’s going to shit himself, he’s there – bright, grounding, light – just to lessen and strengthen the blow all at once. They don’t know that he makes Lucas feel like he’s dying and then he makes him feel like he’s the oxygen Lucas is running out of. They don’t know that. They don’t. They don’t.

But Lucas does. And it’s the scariest fucking feeling in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: some aching hearts, a much awaited talk, and the final conclusion!
> 
> please leave your thoughts as i would really love to read them. stay safe <3
> 
> find me on tumblr [@demauryss](https://demauryss.tumblr.com)


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